Hello everyone and welcome to our weekly workshop. This is Luca from MCD and Kay is from Manila. I'm keeping her in the office a bit late today. Hi everyone. So today we're going to... Oh sorry there is a message. Can you hear us by the way? Can everyone hear properly like is the volume okay? Is it clear? Yes? Yes. Okay. Perfect, so we'll start. We're going to keep the presentation as short as we can because what we want to do is take some questions and discuss with you what are the best ways to use this new platform. I mean it's not a new platform, it's new for IOM. And we hope you find it useful. So today we're going to talk about medium, what is medium and how can IOM make the most out of this blogging platform which was co-founded a few years ago by one of Twitter's first executives who left the company around 2012 to turn this, what you see now, into a 60 million people worth pool of readers according to latest statistics. It's a relatively small company, it only has 50 employees and as of a couple of weeks back they have also turned the platform into, they've created a premium account so it's a free platform but for those who are more interested to get exclusive content with a $5 membership per month you'll be able to access podcasts and more exclusive content from top influencers but that's not something that we're interested in at the moment. So we're going to introduce medium which we believe might be a good alternative for missions that don't have the capacity or enough content to produce a shortened story. So a shortened has been already introduced last year in 2016 and we have had some wonderful stories on our featured on our website and medium operates in a similar way can be used in a similar way. The main difference as we'll see later is that one is embedded, one story, a shortened is embedded on our website, the other one it's an app that you can find on your smartphone. So the way we consume the content is different but both platforms are very useful and we believe that IOM and missions and divisions and departments can make good use of it. So again, maybe you want to take the first couple of slides. Sure. Okay, so like what Luca said, medium is a blogging platform. Everybody on Twitter who has the medium account automatically follows the same account who has the medium account. So for example, on our Twitter account, we have more than 50,000 followers and everybody there who has a medium account automatically will follow us on the other platform. So it's like a prerequisite of Twitter pretty much. So medium is a platform where everybody can tell the story, share it and the best stories are delivered straight to the public in an easy and accessible way. So yeah, like what Luca said, 16 million users ready to meet over there and the good thing about sharing anything on medium is that it is a go-to platform for discerning readers, readers who actually love to read and then readers who are, we call them agenda setting bloggers and influencers. Next slide, Luca. So what kind of stories we should post on our medium account? So this one is already posted there but basically we're gonna post the photo on the slide. It's already online on our medium account if you wanna check it out, so really good one. So what do we post? Photo essay, images, at least five images, but really on this account, on this platform, you don't really need like super really good photos but if you have them, it would be great but without photos, it's also gonna work. So that and then op-eds, short feature stories from the field. So these are technically stories that usually don't go out on shorthand and other platforms because those platforms need photos, videos, et cetera, but for just words and just short stories, you can immediately post it on the medium account. And then human interest stories, profiles covering IOMs, work with migrants, stories that support existing campaigns that's for example, I'm a migrant and teasers of existing content. Next slide. For instance, we had a couple of projects like IOMX, our first piece was produced by them and it was an interesting story about viral video on Facebook, which was, I think, viewed by 77 million people in the Asia Pacific region after which prime minister shared it on his account? Oh, well, my president, like a private page of our flipping president shared it and it became viral in the Philippines as well, so. Yes, sorry. So as we said, medium is, can be the right choice for every single employee at IOM and unlike other platform, it is specifically intended by Kasey to host written content. So even if the audiovisual side of it is very important and captivating because especially the cover photo should be one that grabs the attention, the title and the cover photo should be the one that grabbed the attention of the reader. We really want to emphasize that this is a blogging platform, so the main source will be the story, the content. So we believed in this case for medium, we would like to host stories, as we said already, that are too short to be published on Shorten. So when we have, when we receive at MCDNSU a story that we believe should not be featured on Shorten, we suggest medium as an alternative and it's not because medium is less interesting or because Shorten has more features, but it's simply that Shorten is specifically designed to host longer stories and the way it works, the way medium works instead is, the way the platform works is specifically designed to host stories that, which can be read in no more than three to five minutes. And in fact, at the beginning of each blog you will see that medium suggests how many minutes you will take to read the story. And I hardly see or read a story that will take more than four minutes of my time. So it's designed to basically occupy a few minutes of your days, specifically in the morning or when you have a lunch break or when you want to read a short story, while on Shorten of course we'll have, we could spend up to 15, 20 minutes if the story is very dense. Also in case we don't have enough visual content, so if, as you all see on Shorten, we usually have photo essays and we tend to upload videos. Medium can host videos, but the difference on medium is that each video that can be uploaded needs to come already from YouTube. So we will never probably recommend more than one for each story. The difference that we have on Medium and the only probably feature that we can't find on Shorten and that probably would interest those who like me are very geeky in terms of social media is that we can feature tweets. So if we are analyzing a specific trend or a specific moment or if you're maybe analyzing, let's say World Refugees Day, one option is on Twitter to create a series of moments. Another option is to analyze perhaps the content and why the campaign went viral by picking up the best tweets of the day and analyzing how the campaign went. And that can be easily done on Medium. So if any of you is currently working on a campaign or wants to present a successful viral video that they had on a specific platform, then a case study could be presented on Medium and we encourage that. A third cluster would be personal experiences, account of IOM staff members. Again, if you have a specific emergency that you're currently facing and you don't have enough time to write a Shorten account, an interesting thing could be as we suggest usually now to record a couple of tweets, video tweets, describing the current situation. For instance, if we're in South Sudan and there is a, and one of your project is delivering 50 million liters of water to a specific community, then what the PI could do is record a couple of videos on Twitter, a couple of short statements from maybe the chief of mission again on Twitter and then create a very nice story with a few photos and a couple of tweets featured on Medium and it could be as short as 150 words. But then the advantage is that once the story is published on Medium, on the global account, it's accessible to everyone. So everyone can share that story on their personal accounts, on their missions account or on their website. If they have one, they can simply copy paste or get in touch with the PI and get the content. Again, quick reactions by a PI spokesperson on a relevant news event. This is really important. In case, for instance, there is an emergency and you don't have access to your website or you don't have access to MCD or OCU because it's a Sunday, an easy option might be to get in touch with us through WhatsApp or email and then we could quickly help to draft a short statement for Medium. And then again, stories of beneficiaries. This is really useful in case you want to discuss migration stories, migrant stories. And I'm not just thinking about, I'm a migrant, I'm thinking about IMX, I'm thinking about six degrees of separation. The project we were introduced last week on human trafficking. I'm thinking about specific stories of beneficiaries. And again, if you don't have enough content and we don't have the time to help you with a shortened story, we're very happy to help you with a more compact story on Medium. Yeah, okay, I guess, I can hear my voice. Yes. Yeah, another one would be, I'm sure some of you have experience in writing a PBN, but it's not going to be, it's not part of the roster that we send globally. And usually the option would be to distribute it locally. One way where we can put some mileage on that is to also make a Medium blog and then post it on Medium and then have more diverse audience than just the local one. And obviously when you do that, you try to direct it on a different way where it will interest people outside of your country. And yeah, so it's also an option for that. Kay, do you want to play in back to this part? Okay, so what are the differences of Medium to the other platforms that we already have? So we already touched base on Shorthand a bit, but let's just talk about Weblog first. So for those of you, I'm sure everybody have heard that we have a Weblog site on the website. So it's where we post all of the blogs from all over the world. Some of you may be asking why we need Medium when we already have a Weblog page. I think the sensible answer to that is, Medium has a ready audience. Like we have people going on Medium every day. And for example, just one post that we did that I posted on the Weblog and then I posted on Medium. On Medium, in a day, it has more than 300 views on Weblog, no shares. So from there, you can see how much this one, you can see the stats. This is also a good advantage, especially for Luca and I. We do the social media audit. You can see how posts are performing every day. And it's hard to get that on our Weblog page, but here on Medium, you can see everything, the views, the reads, recommendation. This really, you can see what kind of trends are happening and what kinds of posts are working and what doesn't. And then help and get those information and eventually help us in our future posts. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead. Yeah, and what else? I think that's the biggest difference with Weblog and Medium is that the audience is there, people are reading, and you don't have to share and share and share just to get people to read whatever is written on the Weblog. Yeah, and it's a comparative advantage that also Medium, unlike the Weblog, is an app. So it gives you comparative advantages when it comes to the layout. It's, and I will show you a couple of photos. Medium is optimized for your smartphone. So when you open a story, you will see that on the desktop, it looks in a specific way, but when you read it on your smartphone, which is the intended final destination, then the layout will be very, very pleasant and very concise. So we really want to try to boost it also because we have access to other medium accounts, including the one managed by the United Nations called We The People. This is the blog managed, a Medium account managed by DPI, and we are very welcome to submit stories, especially when they're linked to the Join Together campaign, or if there's specific stories with a specific interest that might be welcomed by the team in New York. You see the UNHCR and the UN Human Rights Agency have already submitted a few stories, UNDP as well, we might as well do so. Of course, as we explained to you how we're gonna edit and what's the process, the editing process, needless to say, when we submit process to the UN, when we submit blogs to the UN Medium, MCD and OCEO will have to review the content, obviously. But I'll let Kay finish, and then we're maybe gonna show you a couple of stories that they already produced before we go to the Q&A. Kay, you wanna go ahead with the dissemination? Yeah, sure. I think we missed a couple of points on the previous slide. So I think we already pretty much said everything, the difference between Medium and Short-Hand. Medium and PBNs. PBNs, as we know, is our more formal way of presenting data and news to a lot of our readers, and we send this globally, internally and externally. But Medium is, it's still formal, but it's easier, it's catered mostly to readers who doesn't know or are not from our network immediately. So for example, the PBNs, we have a distribution list that we send our things to, and obviously these are people who are in touch with us before or knows about us, but Medium, we try to reach people outside of our usual audience. So I think that's a big difference between the two. Yeah. And I'm just peeking out of the blue. It's also a very interesting platform if you have to showcase data. So for instance, for Missing Migrant Project, it would be a really cool way, an interesting way to present data about the Mediterranean or about even human trafficking with a combination of tweets, videos and photos presented in a more compelling way. So that would be, just today we, I sent an email to all the social media focal points. That was an interesting address here plus live video yesterday, which quoted IOM and was discussing the migration and refugee situation in the Mediterranean. And at the same time, K shared very interesting Medium blog which was of course linked to the Facebook live but presented the data in a very cohesive way. And that's a very interesting one. Yeah, it's like a weekly digest, precisely. So onto probably the most boring part of the presentation but it didn't necessary. So how to get your blog posted on Medium. Okay, go ahead.  And we have assigned them editors who are going to look and see what needs to be done if there is. And then once approved by our editors, we look out and I will post it on the Medium account. And then obviously we're gonna disseminate it to other platforms, Twitter, Facebook and share it with everyone as well. So you can be alerted that there's something new and that you can share it as well on your respective mission and thematic platforms. Yeah, so we're actually gonna need the help of regional communications coordinators to help us in the future to translate all of our blogs in French and Spanish. So we, yeah, that's a long-term goal that Luca and I wrote in the initial proposal that we did is that to have it in three different languages. But now we have it in English, but in the future we are very much looking forward to have it also in French and Spanish. Yeah, it will also depends on how much time the special regional coordinator in West Africa and South America can spend. So we'll have a separate conversation with Juliana from South America, Jorge from Central America and Tej for Western Africa to see if they will have the time not just to translate but to curate posts coming from the region. We're trying to give more space to other languages as well. And hopefully when the regional communication coordinator in Cairo will begin his or her term, we'll be able to perhaps do it in Arabic. But these are all separate conversations that we'll have with the specific offices. So that's it for now. We're gonna just show you a couple of stories that we have already produced and then it's time for Q&As. So just to give you an idea, we've launched the IAM account two weeks ago and we have 10 stories. I think this one could be interesting to show. Actually, I'm gonna show you two stories. One, here we go. This is pretty much a blog that follows a trend which was launched by the World Economic Forum a couple of years ago. They were the first organization to reach five million weekly users because they were using this particular way of creating headlines, five trends of 2015, the four trends of the post-revolution of the post-industrial era, et cetera, et cetera. An interesting way to present perhaps more technical analysis of migration would be to present something like this article which sums up the three recommendations to improve global migration government. This is an article that was written by Olivia here at MCD on occasion of the GCM thematic discussion at Palais. And as you can see, the article, the structure is very, very, very simple. We have access to media library if you don't have, if you have very generic blog on migration, we can ask our photographers to help us with one photo that could be attached to it. And then you see the structure is very, very, very easy and it's divided in three main parts. First one, the second and third recommendation. And what we can do is even now that it's been edited, we can still change the image. So I can work on the size of the image if I want to. I can add another photo. I can add a video from YouTube. I can add a tweet, et cetera, et cetera. And then I can always go back and publish. One interesting advantage that we have on media is that we can tag stories with specific content. So for instance, migration, government, global compact migrants, if I want to, for instance, add United Nations, the program automatically tells me that there are 2,600 other stories that with the same line. So what it means is that once we create, once users create a profile on Medium, they will be able to submit certain interests to the algorithm and they will be recommended specific stories every time they log in to the homepage. So we can only add five tags in total, but by adding the tags, we can make sure to reach more users who are interested in a specific topic. And that's a function we don't have on the website, we don't have on short term, we don't have on the blog, but we have on Medium. So that's a comparative advantage. I think it's comparable to the hashtag system of Twitter. So when you try to look for a topic, you try to look at using a hashtag and then it's all of the tweets using that hashtag is going to be there. So it's the same for Medium. This is another story from the Lost Voice series which was created in a collaboration with the office in Dakar. And this was a story of, you see the structure is very similar to short term, but the story is much shorter. And it's the story of a 12 year old child who was forced to leave his mother and hoping to make it to Europe and then went through some rough experience before being reunited. And as you can see, you have the stories and you can add quotes, you can add links to tweets, you can add links to other articles from Medium or from external sources. So if you have a data report, a PDF file that's on the website that we want people to refer to, you can add it as a hyperlink here. You can add stories and then you see a video. The only difference you have from short term, well, it's the same, and again, it needs to be uploaded first on the, the platform and then in the room. And here. So you can see the layout is very clean. And as you can see here at the top, the program suggests it will take you three minutes to read the story. So it's less elaborated than short term, but still very, very neat. And the design is clean. And at the bottom you will have, because you have specific tags, you will have recommended reads. And that's why tags become a key feature once we publish. So this is it for now. I think we can open the floor if there are questions, comments, concerns, et cetera, et cetera. Even if you guys have questions, of course, just let us know. If you can, if you can. Yes. Please go ahead. Well, like a first or somebody else wants to jump in, I don't mind. Joe, go ahead. You can go first. R.K. here. Very nice presentation. Well done. And I did start using Medium in Asia Pacific last year. And I, you know, it was very, very easy to use. Very quick way of getting stuff published. But we didn't have any time to invest in it. So we just played around with it and reposted some stuff there. But it was really quite good. So congratulations. Looks good. Just a few comments and a few questions, they may, are probably going to take about five minutes if you don't mind. I think the first thing to say is absolutely crucial if you watch the work, and particularly if you want stuff translated. Is to sell this to the chief submission and to the regional chief submission. I guess that Richard in Dakar will go for it straight away. But I think that we should use opportunities like Chris has this week. I think I'm not sure this week or next when he's presenting to the chief submissions in Asia Pacific to run this presentation to say this is what we're going to be doing. Because a lot of them will be aware of Medium, but won't know much else about it. And I think it will be good. And you already have a nicely populated site to show them. So the key is with the chief submission, if they want to invest in it or to invest time in it, then it will work. And if we don't seduce them early on, it'll just have perhaps wither on the vine, which will be a pity because it is definitely an asset. You mentioned languages. We could see in this region whether there will be a possibility of putting up blogs in Russian. Does Medium allow that? Okay, you can answer that later on. Yeah, I think it will be a really good idea. If when you're signing up for Medium, you get a choice of all the different areas to be in various different, the future is one. Sport is another cyber security, another about 20 or 30 different boxes you can take. And then you're to your news. Could we get touch of Medium, put migration as a theme there for people interested? It's not there now. It's humanitarian there either. So that will be a nice thing to do. So if you would actually subscribe, you can get views on migration. Ted, that it was better for presenting data than short-hand. I'd actually take exception. I don't think we've tried yet to really show our data particularly well on short-hand. But I think short-hand does have a lot more bells and whistles, particularly for showing animated maps and so on. So I wouldn't like to see us giving up on the idea of data presentation. In fact, I'd like to see some people. I actually thought that Dan would be doing that early on when we got into short-hand. We spoke about it, but it never happened. That some of the mapping and ETM stuff could be represented very nicely on short-hand. And again, they can be duplicated on Medium, but you have a lot more to offer, data representation on short-hand than you do on Medium. But I agree Medium is way easier to use. The last thing, yeah, as... No, I think they can't hear you well. Did you get any of that? Yeah, we got it, but Asha was thinking... She just left a comment and she said she can't hear you well. So, Dan, do you want me to summarize what I said very quickly? Please. So, okay. I think we should contact Medium and ask them to put migration as a subject that people could choose the same way they have other subjects. That's one thing. Second thing, crucial to sell this to Chief Submission through the regional directors, particularly at the regional policy forum meetings, such as Chris Lom is doing this week in Bavaria. Queens, if they don't buy into things, they don't happen. So, if they don't buy into things, they don't happen. Thirdly, I asked, can we provide them in Russian? Yes, I think they're in Russian. Like I said, I don't agree that Medium is better for presenting data. I think it's different. I think Short-hand has a lot more tools to visualize data better, but it's not being tried. I hope that we should have time to do that very, very quickly. I think the product is not very simple. I had to come to the clinic and it has been sent to me by DeadPassport. Why not? So, I think that data representation on Short-hand, just yet, I think we should try that again. Medium is definitely cleaner and much easier to use the blogging platform than Short-hand. That's not under question. I'm delighted to be using it. I think it's a great idea. Finally, on autonomy to post, I don't want to get in a situation where I want to post something and I'm told that I can't do it because there's five other things in the pipeline. So, I think we need to either have autonomy for the regional offices as parts of MCD to post when they need or just a good agreement and good information on what's being posted when and why. Okay. I think Kate can certainly share the presentation with Chris and perhaps I can share it and we can probably send it to all regional coordinators after this presentation. Or I can actually just share the PowerPoint with all social media focal points and they can present it to the chief of missions if needed or they can get in touch with us for languages. I think right now the idea was to stick to English, French and Spanish, but probably we can have a separate conversation with regional offices who might need other languages. So, yeah, of course, we can probably discuss how to present in other languages. It's not just other languages, it's specifically Russian because we don't have materials for the global compact discussions available in Russian and the submission in the Russian speaking world are embarrassed by that and the window when they present to governments, they're being told, why aren't you doing this in Russian? It's an official UN language and explaining that we joined the UN without the obligation to use Russian and Chinese doesn't cut it. So it's not just other languages, it is specifically Russian, I'm asking about. Russian, Chinese and Arabic, probably. Well, not much Chinese and Arabic spoken in my region, so I'll let them fight for their own corner. Yeah, I guess that's again, yeah, we will need to probably also have a discussion with the GCM to see whether they think it's good. I'm sure they do. It's probably also a matter of capacity, but if the office in Russian has the capacity, I think of course. Then getting in touch with medium, I guess, yes, I'll send them an email. There is a tag that we can already use tags, migration and migrants, but probably they could have a feature, yeah, a specific area on the landing page on this subject. Perhaps it's a good idea. And on post, again, I'm not sure about that. That will again, we'll have to discuss with every region separately, because in the end, I think we'd have to keep some sort of control and MCD and OSU and it takes us a few minutes to publish a post, but we'll have to be the ones publishing it, because it needs to be validated. But again, we'll see, we'll probably have a separate discussion. I don't want to see the happening, it happens with Facebook that basically it's while we have the possibility to publish directly, we don't do it because of various reasons. We are also MCD and OSU here and in Bangkok and in Pretoria. We're part of the same team. So if we need to post, then either it's got to be formalized that no one's allowed to post except HQ and Geneva, or it's got to be a little more democratic. We'll see about that. I think it's just a matter of having the content validated by the editors. Do you have Itai, Manila and then Olivia here in Geneva? And then of course we have Chris in Bangkok and here and Chiara in Pretoria is that we do the work at MCD in the field and if our work is going to be edited in Geneva, that's another conversation and that's something that the Chris and I and Nanod and Chiara need to talk about. We'll talk about it separately and see what the best solution is. We meaning the region coordinators, not we in Geneva. In MCD, OSU and regional coordinators together we'll talk and find a solution to this issue. But sure, let's discuss it. Let's find the best solution for everyone and for each language, especially the official languages of IEM and the UN to have their space if possible and if the capacity is there. Certainly, that's something to keep in mind and to as soon as possible. Let's do a lot more. I mean, it has to be done kind of ad hoc in Russian, particularly for World Days. And so we managed to do a really nice job for the materials on World TV thanks to IEM Moldova. So the ideas around and make that accessible to all the Russians of the world. Yeah, no, of course, of course. Thank you for this question. We'll probably take the conversation to maybe emails and email thread with all the regional coordinators as well as Leonard and Tai from MCD and OSU. Jorge has a question as well. Yeah, I'm on camera. Just a couple of questions about... It's been on camera, camera. You can see. Hi. So you were mentioning that the audience of your medium account is linked somehow to your followers on Twitter or did I just understand? Some of them, some of them, those who are following us on the global account who have a medium account are automatically connected. Oh, okay. Those who have an account are medium and follow you. Not me. Well, follow IEM Global. Yeah, and then we can collect, I mean, we can gather more followers and through the stories and through partnerships, for instance, by writing stories on the UN account or on We The People. Or by, for instance, co-authoring a story with other UN agencies or the ICRC. Most UN agencies do have a medium account by now and we can co-author with them. Because you were mentioning that you were comparing the type of impacts of medium story compared to the weblog entry and doesn't mean that you have much wider visibility on medium because basically once you post something on medium it goes automatically into the Twitter account and then you have to share it. We share it. Something you have to do. So we share it. We probably share a couple of them. I mean, the most relevant one can be shared also on Facebook depending on the quality. But it's the same processes for shortened stories. When we have shortened stories, we are 100% sure that the photos attached, the videos attached are good quality. If the story on medium is relevant we have a high resolution photo of a migrant. Of course, if it's an institutional event, it might be for Twitter. But even if it's related to the global compact we can find photos, generic photos of migrants and migration on the web, on the media library and then use them. And then in that case it could be featured on both Twitter and Facebook or even prepped up in maybe three points and posted on other platforms. We can also create Instagram stories and link them to the medium account. So in case we have a series of interesting photos for each medium story or even just one good photo we can take and basically crop the photo to fit the screen. Portrait, yeah. And then the story on Instagram which will last for 24 hours can be linked to people can swipe up and be more, yeah, read the article directly on medium. So that's a third possibility. Yeah. And then my second question was about the tagging system because when we're talking, for example, to LHD about drafting PVNs it's important for the PVN to feature automatically on our web pages to have the proper tagging, right? But I see that there's a list that's quite long and also some of the thematic tags are overlapping. So we have integration and then you have migration and integration and then you have something else that relates to it. So I wonder if you're going to pretty much replicate the tagging system that you have for the PVNs onto medium or you're gonna come up with a completely new tagging system.  I think it's better here to be as simple as we can. So to use the tag migration as much as we can and then to link it, for instance, if it's human trafficking, also looking at how popular each tag is. So maybe depending on the story, we can try different tags. Like we come up with 10 words and we write the words you see here. We only have up to five tags. We can try each of them and see what their reach is and then we take the top five and we just use these. Yeah, okay. So that would be easier. But maybe we should try at least on this platform because it's a very generic one. We could maybe best to stay away from very technical tags. So if it's a story about a child who was mauled in Libya, we look at human trafficking, migration, child, children, United Nations. You have the five. Yeah, we can try maybe 10, 15 words and see. You see, every time I write, you see, migrating. That's what I'm trying to know. I'm adding a tag now. Ah, you see how? You see. I know if I use data migration, I only have 53 stories. So it's very unlikely to pop up on your own page. But if I, that migration, that's the most popular. So I will go for migration. Let's see children. Again, children. Yeah, you see, that's the most popular one. Children stories, children write. I suppose human rights would be quite popular as well. Right. So it won't be necessarily the way you do it for the PVNs? No, it's not. Depending on what's the popularity of each tag. Okay. I think it's better that way. All right. Let's look. Any other questions? No? We have a question from Sasha. Can it be done without Twitter? I mean, let me find it. Yes, we can. I mean, are you asking if you can have a medium account without the Twitter account? Because if that's your question, ah, okay. We are not encouraging missions to open. Actually, we would prefer not to have other missions opening their own medium account. What we want is to have an official account where everyone publishes their story. It's way better, and it helps skip because we won't have... It's hard to grow many accounts, you know. So let's just focus on one and make sure that it does well. Yeah. No other agency has more than one account. That's why part of this slide was how to submit a story because we want to host them on the official account. It's the same as Short-End. The old Short-End stories are hosted in a specific place on the website. And also, by the way, we're going to have a special place for a medium on the front page of the website. So on the front page below, you will see... Oh, it's there already raised telling me. So there, you will see the migration blog, and then WebTabrey, IOM videos, and then the medium blogs. And then some of the blogs on the WebLog are also going to appear on Medium or vice versa. I am going to make sure that the stories are not the same so we don't want the same feature on the WebLog tab and then the same one on the Medium one. So we're going to make sure that maybe look every week we try to change it up a bit and make sure that all of the Medium blogs are being featured on the front page. And then Long-Term Plan, yesterday I was talking to our website people here and Long-Term Plan is to maybe have a specific page on the website only for Medium, just like what Short-End has on the website as well. The mission wants to start to block them and need another platform, but not necessarily. I mean, for the time being, we would prefer not to have other Medium accounts, but we also understand that some missions have their own website. And some missions, like for instance, Helsinki do speak in Finnish. So in case a mission has a specific need, we can discuss it separately, whether it's a good idea or not to have a Medium account. It would also depend on the amount of content. If you want to have a Medium account in Finnish with one story every year, then probably it's better not to invest too much. But if you intend to blog regularly, we can discuss it. It's, of course, let's send us an email and then we can see whether it's worth your time or maybe it's better just to translate that post in English and have it appear on the global page. It's mainly a problem of reach. It's a trend that we've witnessed. It's like having too many channels at the mission level is not necessarily the best idea, especially when IOM is still a quite unknown organization. And that's why centralizing the content can be more beneficial for everyone. But of course, if you have a blog in the language that's not spoken by many people, then of course, we can see whether it's a good idea to have the blog in another language. But you will have to produce lots of content. So you have to see the capacity of your mission. If you have someone who can author, et cetera, et cetera. So maybe take some time to think about it and then discuss with your chief of mission and then we can, for each case, we can have a separate discussion. Don't know if that answer your point, your question, Sanna. Okay. Yes, it does. Thank you very much. Oh, your mic was on. Sorry. No, it's on, yeah. Do you have another question, Sanna? No, not really. But I can get back to you on this issue. Sure. Any other questions from the participants? Feel free to don't be shy. Is there anything that you didn't understand? Some more concerns that you have or questions about short-term suggestions. The main idea was, the main idea behind the blog, behind Medium was also to, we know that the blog doesn't have many big visits and that's also because our website is not very easy to navigate. So it really takes time to find the blog. And so having a Medium thumbnail featured both at the top of the website at the, in the news desk and of course having this global account where everyone can basically post content and have content available for everyone else to just share could be a more interesting way to reach out to a wider audience. Do you plan to shut down the blog in the future? We'll see. Maybe not shut down, but if we shut the blog down in six months, perhaps we'll find that we have to find a way to migrate the most relevant stories to Medium so that we don't lose the content. And of course, if we shut down the blog, if that happens, all stories will be archived. We're not deleting them because I know there's been a lot of time invested in so we would probably try to find a way to keep the most relevant stories. We'll see, it's not in the, it's not a question we have the moment. For the time being, is there a type of story that you would prefer people use the blog for? Sorry again. At this time, is there a type of story that you would prefer featuring on the blog as opposed to Medium or right now, everything goes on Medium as long as it's blog-ish? I would prefer Medium, but I understand, for instance, if you have a, let's look. Let's go on the website. For instance, a story as this one, because it's for World Environment Day, would probably have a much better reach on Medium, but it pretty much depend on the cover photo. Put it off. This is illegal. I think it's part of a project. You was trying to, they were trying to explore, to explain to kids how climate change, environment and migration work. So I guess the choice will be pretty much depending on the content. And also if you have, as I told you before, and on Medium, you can add tweets, you can add more JPEGs, it gives you more options. So depending on how complex the story is, even if it takes you just three minutes to read it, you can go for both. But I think it would be nice to focus on developing Medium and see if actually the stats confirm that we get more views. And we are looking now at the last three months of reach for several of the tools that we are using. So we're gonna look into the blog. And I know from OCU that the blog has virtually no visits unless we post articles on the news desk or on our other platforms. But even for the news desk, we're doing an auditing now to see how many clicks we have, et cetera, et cetera. So we're trying to optimize every channel. So we think this might be a platform that gives each story more visibility with wider audience. If we see that in six months, it doesn't work well. We'll see what we did wrong or we'll see whether there was a mistake on our side. But I mean, right now, I think the stories that we had already, some of them had a much wider reach than stories on the blog. Of course, it depends on the content too. Yeah. But I really like this way. Yeah, also to add to that, if you can compare the blog that you were looking at earlier, the environment one, immediately you can tell that it's something that you can also put on medium but on a different style because there it starts with our work in the UN Migration Agency, ION. And in our medium platform, you're gonna try, it's not just gonna be just about our work, starting with ION, blah, blah, blah. So it's generally, migration obviously, so it's not just maybe what kind of content but also the style of writing will be different from the blog to the medium account. And probably what we'll do in the next few weeks will be a second or third, I think there was one already at the beginning of the year but maybe another round workshops with Joel or Olivia who can better explain how to write or creative writing. This one by Britain for the GCN, this blog was really successful because it was simple and it used the same structure that the WF created for their successful blog a few years ago. There is an interesting, yeah, for instance, five fact about world migration or five fact about migration, even if you have like a series of bullet points about interesting facts from that your mission knows, your division knows about, I don't know, human trafficking, et cetera. If we have access to good individual content, we can create an interesting story on medium and it certainly reaches good results. So they call the list of course, right? Yeah, yeah, they're done. It basically seduces your brain for like a millisecond more than the title that you might have on the other blog, what that is. But we'll work on that. Amazing. Any other question? No, the BuzzFeed, was that one? Yeah.  I have a main. You hear me? Yes. No, on the Facebook and Twitter, a small description, you're in the blog, okay, I am in the blog. You hear me? But along about us, but just a sentence description. Is it Chen or or Joe? Both of you are speaking. Oh. Not very clearly, Joe. Well, like swapping the microphone, there's no else I can do. Yeah. As you can see. As we try. Off, see if that makes a difference. Any improvement? Any? Okay, well, I'll be quick. Obviously, I was a big fan and a big user of the blog and I would be sad to see it go, but to all things, they're in season. It would be good course to have it on medium because there's, you know, there's a lot of things you can pick out and sound bites you can take for other things that are there. Shame to lose a body of work. And the stress is that we still, again, I'm coming back to it because it's what the missions want, not necessarily what MCD thinks the missions want is somewhere to publicize their activities and their corporate stuff, their boring stuff and their non snappy millennium focus big day business showing off their missions. In a classic case is the stuff in Georgia, which was very much old style, Soviet information campaign, photographs were staged, and yet it brings tens if not hundreds of hundreds and that need to be represented there. I think that, you know, again is your vision medium is somewhere that we can use this type of boring stuff or is your vision of medium directly what's going on on Facebook, but just with longer articles? I can't hear very well, I don't know what the question was. Hey, did you hear what, did you hear? I think what Joe was asking is, for example, you know, for more formal or traditional meetings or important events that is happening in the missionary regional offices, is medium the, could be another platform to post that because, you know, usually on Facebook, we don't post those things anymore. I mean, I would be terribly sad to see these things on Facebook, but perhaps the PBS are a good idea or on, they could be... Yeah, people can see that, but I mean, we're trying to represent what the missions want as well, not necessarily what Facebook wants. We've had this discussion before, it's not been resolved. And I don't want to see that straight away, another channel is tailored to, which is not going to be something the missions particularly want. You know, Chris Long brought this up again with the branding guide on the call on Monday. You know, we have to start doing what the missions want because otherwise they'll just ignore what we do and it's giving them stuff they don't necessarily want or use. We've got a very, very small place in the world of IOM and we know we have to do what the clients want. The clients are the users and not necessarily the missions because you can have... A little bit different, a little bit different. I'm not sure what we're doing here. There's the missions, we don't get... No, no, please, let me finish one second. What we try to do, for instance, on the global platform, we try to understand it might be difficult to be replicated by all missions because many of them are understaffed. And that's why I understand that some have to produce specific content. And I know most Facebook pages are used in various ways, not necessarily to post stories about beneficiaries, but what we do is mostly trying to understand who the followers are and what their interest is. So for instance, I know on the global platform on Facebook if I'm posting a photo of a migrant profile from the Asia Pacific region, chances are that the reach will not be quite relevant, unfortunately, because the majority of our followers are from May 25 to 34 from Iraq, from the United States, Italy and other countries. So we have to balance between content that users want because otherwise we'll post things that they don't necessarily like or want to follow. But then every mission has different priorities. So on their Facebook profile, they will post meetings if they think so, of course. Yeah, yes, and we've had this discussion, but I mean, for your creating channels of communication that are not of interest to the missions or to the chiefs of mission, who are the ones that run the missions? And that's why I said early on that we have to get them on. I mean, fantastic if you can get five million people signed up to a Facebook channel. That's great, we're getting our word out. But it's got to be from my point of, and I knew as a communicator, I congratulate you on that and it's great. But from my point of view here, and from Chris's point of view in Bangkok and Kiara's presumably from Victoria, we're serving the missions and we have to get their news out some way and just posting a picture of, you know, a cute picture on social media, doesn't particularly for the band. They're not going to engage with us as their communication resource if we're not giving them what they want. And if you're creating a new communications channel, ala Medium, and perhaps closing down the blog, which was useful for parking stuff and for giving us a web link that we could then use on social media channels in the absence of being able to use on Facebook. If you are creating these, there has been an understanding of what the things that we for it actually want. No, we're not closing the web for the time being. We were just, that was potentially an idea, but it depends on the reach and the blog stays there for now. We're just trying to nurture the, boom. Same way we did. And the blog was only useful for me, for creating a link that I can then use on social media. Because I can't get the day-to-day work of the missions publicized on IOM social media channels because it's not what you want. And it's difficult then that editorial control is ruled by what tickles the Facebook algorithm rather than what our pay masters actually want. But Joe, that's I think where the mission accounts, individual accounts go in as well. Those are also really good channels to post things that are even more relevant to that region as well. Yeah, but it doesn't get the support of the main global IOM. And it's creating more diffuse and fractured communications. Anyway, we're not getting rid of the blog if that was your concern. So we keep posting articles on the blog. A very small part of my concern. I'm just a very, very small part of what I'm talking about. I'm not sure if this is obviously this isn't the right time to get the message across, but I have put in writing before. I know you can't hear me that well. But I do have concerns about editorial direction and who we are actually creating content for. I guess this is also a conversation that maybe we should have with Leonard and the tie in copy because K and I are not really leading the two departments. We're just. I'd like to have it. I think meeting is fantastic and could be fantastic, but I would not like to see it being ring fenced. You know, for. Just just for social for clicks before it could be a really useful communications channel. First off, it's not going to get that many likes. It's not and and and reasons. It's not only about that. It's about influence. And we, you know, we seem to be selling that down the river a bit. OK. Get this up and running. And I know I wholeheartedly supported. You've got my entire backing. But there's also negotiation on it as to what it's used for. And it would be great to organize, you know, a wider call with it would be great to have people Yara on calls like this as well. I don't know why they're not there today. I mean, we hardly see regional coordinators when we have workshops on social media. We have like six and almost never had. Regional coordinators attend. So it's good to have you here today. But we had we've had plenty this year and we've been discussing Instagram stories and Facebook lives and others. And we'd like to see more participation, of course, to get more input. So it's good that you attended today. And yeah, I've got the points written down so we probably can continue the conversation with Leonard and it as well and see what's the best way of use this platform and other platforms as well. And I can wonder if I can suggest formally that no, people would have been a long time in the organization and have responsibility for several countries and that work directly with with with chief submission that can sell this. I think they understand. OK, I'm going to I'm going to do mail. I'll stop now taking too much. Did you say you're going to write an email? I think it's easier because you're not getting one, you know. Yeah, sorry, but the audio is really bad. But Joe, rest assured that the concern is being taken. It's already, you know, right on the mind when I'm going to make sure that it's going to be addressed soon. Thank you, OK. Any other questions from participants? No, no. Well, we hope you'll find it useful. So we'll we'll continue publishing on on on shorthand on this new platform, medium and on the the the blog. So we are not. So if it wasn't clear, we are not we are not we are not shutting down the blog. We're trying to. To promote this new platform. So we're going to share the presentation with everyone. And if you need any any support or if you want to have a symbol in a conversation with your chief of missions to promote the platform or the use of the platform, please, please include us and we'll be very, very glad to assist. Or if you don't want to include us directly, just get in touch with your regional coordinator and they will be certainly equally helpful with with the cause. So thank you very much for everyone participating. We'll we'll stop the recording now and have a nice day. OK, thanks. Thank you, Joe.


What's up everybody Jason here for Jasper's case breaks calm 2013 penny select football four box hobby break random divisions number two Just sold out and again guys. This is the first year of select There's eight total spots everybody gets a random division all-card ship four autograph for prisms six inserts four rookies per box the first edition of Select football uses the popular prism technology throughout the entire brand including select in motion select greatness hot and white hot hot and white hot sick veterans And again Random divisions guys. Here's the dice rollers of customer names and teams. Let's roll Five and a six eleven times one two three four five six seven eight nine ten and eleven eleven times David down to Andrew Eleven times here one two three four five six seven eight nine ten Eleven You see north down the NFC north David with a FC north and you with NFC south Andrew you have the AFC south Andrew with the AFC east David with the NFC east Scott with the AFC west Jared with the NFC west and Andrew with the NFC north So if you guys want to trade i'll give you guys a quick minute for trades If not, we are gonna start ripping. I know trades guys All right All right, sorry, Jared. I'm just gonna close it man. Alrighty guys There you go 2013 select four boxes Good luck try to trade couldn't trade motion. Yeah See if that works out right now, man All right guys, some of the some of the uh silvers here guys, especially the veterans like Tom Brady and stuff So extremely well and this 2013 draft has isn't even too bad You know de hop is a big one here. You got Travis Calci, Zach Erz, Levy on Bell some other good rookies as well, but I said some of these veteran silvers Zach Dicer, I mean lower this down this camera's a little too big right now Should be better All right, and of course redemptions are gonna kind of suck in this but if they have it they'll give it to you if they don't There you go Zach Hertz rookie jersey autographs So fly goes fly Um NFC east Gonna David and that is a rookie jersey autographs as well Even like Tom Brady base like this It probably sells pretty well And silver von Miller and again the silver just really popped back in the day Uh cornelius To 499 49ers NFC west NFC west try to trade couldn't trade mojo We got kenyon barnard pro duck right there Back in the house with the panthers got drafted by them greatest nines So that'll be a randomizer if we have more of those we'll just Just split them evenly Zach setfield to 499 It's jets Patterson Carson Palmer Benny Cunningham to 499 There's levy on bell rookie And tyron matty. Look at that honey badger cardinals edition afc west Or NFC west are jared with that one and Nile davis hot rookies To 25 Kansas city 2,500 people there. There's actually people in the stadium today Yeah, nice. That's right. We still have to do that filler though, too There's seven spots. I think hiding in the filler right next to it. But yeah, we're close on that too All right guys, we're pretty much booked all the way up. We're like five hours out We're pretty much booked to 1115 Uh because if some of these breaks are gonna take a little long that baseball makes it probably take me about two hours So just continue to sell these breaks if you want to see them happen tonight If you're gonna want to see them live, you're probably gonna have to stay a little late For that it's okay We will we will be here like this lot of more Arian foster to 25 christine michael to 499 little jersey auto de maryus thomas silver brice butler to 199 autograph for the raiders And we got jordan reid. This was actually a great tight end rookie class Jordan reid travis kelsie zack erz. I think bantz mcdonald was also a rookie in this zack sudfield to 199 for the jeff's barry sandersilver bj fluker theoretic Did not bring any red bulls But uh, I think my adrenaline is just gonna kick in Now we guys check the schedule frequently Check the schedule frequently. We're pretty much booked all the way up to 11 Football mixture is gonna sell out That'll probably uh That'll probably add another I don't even know how big that football fixer is How big is that football mixer? You got 15 boxes Probably here to at least like one or two That's all good, Nick I don't really like to do too many energy drinks actually I did like to drink when I was a little bit younger I used to love to drink like this because I just love the flavor Uh of gnas Just the regular original flavor But um Yeah, energy drinks didn't never really hit me as as it should At least I didn't feel it But I don't really do too much energy drinks Yeah, also that too, I mean You know doctor was like no energy drinks nothing. I was like, okay Yeah, I mean, I didn't drink it a lot. That's the only energy drink I used to drink though on your man probably like Once every week once every week just depending But not for like years or anything like that Um But I just did it just because a coworker of mine that worked here before Just drank those all the time and I was just like, yeah, I just love the flavor. I was just like, okay Yeah, I stopped Robinson I've never tried fire energies Never tried power energies Jones silver This is like our fourth the Zach Sudfeld auto for the Jets Matt Tateo Brown and Marshall Yeah, the only person I know here that really does a lot of energy is Sean. He's the only one I think I know that does a lot of energy drinks Oh, yeah, I don't want yeah Other than that Like I said, I I never really felt the benefit of it. So that's probably why I didn't really drink them much but I said that was a part Right, just drank them just because it tasted good But I didn't really do that much in motion Julio Jones But yeah, I know they're supposed to be really bad for you though. I mean Like monsters and all that stuff But yeah, we still drink them, right I was like when you see like the cross I don't even know if these to have cross signs Like on the end nutrition facts, but when I was younger, I'm like, what does this little cross sign mean? I was like, does that mean like At your own risk So you get 10 hour energy Logan instead of five hour energy Because you drink two a day There's a tea one now. I've seen those coffee monsters. It's like a mixture of just coffee and Coffee flavor and just a monster, right? Giovanni Bernardo 399 that's a of c north Josh Gordon just scored a game-winning touchdown the other day for the players Players they guys I think Nick Moody And barchivius mingo silver Let's get adult Tom Brady silver one time So London Fletcher to 25 Washington football team with that one. That's a nfc east Brady base John and steward another product Sierra would Joseph rando We got gold Wow, we got a brett farve gold gold It's actually probably sounds pretty well First year of select and a gold like brett farve One out of 10 nfc north That is pretty sweet nfc north andrew there you go That's pretty sweet Oh, I didn't realize that was the four boxes. Oh, wow. That's a good way to end the four boxes right there. Nice All right, everybody.  I mean the zackers was pretty nice, but it is a redemption A lot of silvers Like I said, even some of these base braids actually probably go for more than we think Of course getting them graded is going to help out that price tag, but that berry sanders is probably pretty strong But of course brett farve brett farve right there There you go So I appreciate it guys just select football four box hobby break random divisions number two


Sad, I know. You open your eyes and wow, what's that? Well, it's the pearly gates. Congratulations, my guy, you've made it to heaven.  A few days have passed now and you're really liking it in heaven. You click with everyone, they're supportive and they share your interests.  People are fighting in the streets and authors are being burned at the stake. This week, things will be back to normal. But for now, welcome to Booktube. Get back! Jesus, just tell me what's going on. I told you to get back. We're shaking Booktube, welcome to another video. Today I want to talk about a rather polarizing topic and that is the collective distaste that a lot of people have for Book Twitter. Book Twitter is a simple enough concept, a community of book lovers centralized on the platform of Twitter. It has been said a few times that Booktube is like a school. Booktube is other teachers who stand up at the front and put on a show while the audience watches. If that's the case, then Book Twitter would be the cafeteria where teachers and students alike hang out and let off some steam. Drama and bickering is an inevitable side effect of any community. It's not unheard of on Booktube or God knows any other YouTube community so holding that against Book Twitter in particular would not be entirely fair. And it should be said that not all debate or polarizing viewpoints on Twitter should be branded as nothing more than drama because that too detracts from the actual purpose of this video. The truth is that having a thriving community of book lovers on such an active social medium like Twitter is fantastic in theory and sometimes an execution. Having such quick and convenient access to book recommendations and thoughts from other people that you trust or otherwise relate with can be extremely valuable and entertaining. If you're taking part in a read-a-thon, chances are all of the updates and information for said read-a-thon will be easily found on its own dedicated Twitter account. The best part of all though is that it can all be accessed from the comfort of your own bed. Book Twitter has also been a driving force in promoting lesser known authors and diverse reads that may otherwise have flown under the radar. Not just small authors but small creators in general, booktubers, bloggers, artists, etc. There's a rather interesting feature on Twitter that has lent itself pretty well to sharing recommendations and ideas between each other and that's threads. One person makes a tweet, perhaps asking for recommendations on a great romantic read, and then anyone who replies to that tweet will add to a thread. A list format of responses that can be consumed within a few quick swipes. A good example of book Twitter being a good thing would be… sorry, just one second. Bear with me. Ah, here we go. Have a look at this. Here's some prime examples of when book Twitter has been an absolutely positive force. Now before I get into the all-consuming, ugly side of book Twitter, I want to make it clear that I think this platform is an exceptional way for book lovers to connect with each other. Book Twitter is not necessarily a bad thing, most of the time. Now I'm not going to go into a full in-depth conversation about cancel culture. This video isn't a cancel culture video, plus I'll let you in on a little secret. Shhh, just between us, sweetie.  I do want to throw in here pretty quickly that if watching a straight white dude talk about cancel culture is something that you just can't stomach, I'm going to leave some links in the description below to videos that at least cover some similar topics to what I'm going to be discussing in this part of the video. And most of those videos that I link are going to be by people from minority groups. The points I'm about to make aren't just my opinions, for the most part they are, but they're also viewpoints that I've gathered from other people that seem to have a bad taste in their mouth from Twitter or book Twitter in particular. With that said, it would be impossible to discuss the overarching issues with book Twitter without talking about what could understandably be seen as a passionate love for putting people in the naughty chair.  I understand that the term cancel culture itself is resented by some people as they think it's minimizing genuine criticisms being discussed about what could truly be problematic content. However, I think that's missing the point. Genuine criticism actually being discussed generally wouldn't be considered cancel culture anyway, as that term, at least in my experience, is reserved for something a bit different. Cancel culture does not equal holding people accountable for their actions, which was what the cancel movement actually began as, seeking justice for the wrongdoings of people that would otherwise be untouchable. This is not a video about cancel culture. Cancel culture itself is such an immensely complex subject and it varies from case to case. It's complex because humans are complex and that's something we like to negate online. We should not undermine how quickly people can change their ideas. I know online it seems that people don't change their ideas because they are encouraged not to, but our ideas can change quite quickly and so to cancel people for tweets that they made years ago, potentially even things that they said last week, I think it's just a lie to yourself. Blanket statements when you're talking about cancel culture, whether you think it is or isn't a thing, it just doesn't work. I've spoken to quite a few people who consider Twitter a toxic space and there is something that is generally agreed upon between all of them. That is the idea that cancel culture is an attitude that is either becoming more common or is becoming louder, or maybe both. That attitude is believing that because you take issue with something an artist has created, they should no longer be respected, looked up to, or even employed. Usually without providing the...  I mean a back and forth with people outside of your bubble. Cancel culture is, by its very nature, the pursuit of escalating a conflict, rather than attempting to understand an opposing view. So let's put this in a way that might be a bit easier to follow. Here is how it will usually go step by step. Meet person A. Person A will read something that upsets them. Oh no. Person A will then make a tweet stating that this thing that upset them is either racist, homophobic, or otherwise intolerant or insensitive in some way. Person A's followers will be the first people exposed to this and being that they already liked this person enough to follow them, they will be predisposed to implicitly trust their view on the book that they may not have actually read. That may take the form of liking, retweeting, sub-tweeting, etc. And in doing so, we go to point four, which is that point three will repeat itself for each of these followers that have engaged with person A's original tweet. The snowball is turned into an avalanche and like most online interactions, it has escalated and now the author is, by extension, racist, a homophobe, or otherwise intolerant in some way. Essentialism is when we go from criticising a person's actions to criticising the person themselves. We're not just saying they did bad things, we're saying they're a bad person. Most times without them being able to provide a defence and if they do come out and provide a defence or an apology, it is received negatively in almost all cases. No one is willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. That's not a good enough apology! I thought it was alright. Ah! An apology apologist! He's for apologies! Get him! A perfect example of this would be when Veronica Roth's carved-a-mark was accused of being racist. Why? Well, because the story included two rival social groups. One a savage, dark-skinned culture, and the other a light-skinned civilised culture. Okay, that does sound a bit concerning. A tad familiar too. But here's the thing, this claim got massive circulation. It severely damaged the reputation of the author, Veronica Roth, at least at that point in time. But here's the thing. That whole claim about the two social groups, one dark-skinned, one light-skinned, it was completely, quantifiably, and objectively, false.  Those two cultural groups that I mentioned were actually quite mixed. But no one cared to check this for themselves before passionately judging the character of a woman that they'd never met. This is cancel culture. Stop it! I should mention that carved-a-mark had a few other controversies, but if you read the book, you'll be immediately aware that they were either absurd or greatly exaggerated. Now, obviously there are books that have content that should be discussed openly, and perhaps sometimes even called out. But therein lies the problem. Each instance of this is astronomically different from one example to the next. It's something that could be viewed differently from person to person based on their lives and experiences. It's often subjective and it's always complex. So what do you think happens when you try to compact such a damaging and complex issue into 280 characters? When you try to point out a section or theme of a novel in a short tweet or two and label it with something as serious as intolerance or ignorance, you're inevitably scrubbing at least some of the context that in a lot of cases is so important to clarifying the need for that upsetting content in the narrative. This is an even bigger problem when you consider that it's often only one tweet within a thread that goes viral for the wrong reasons, and people will rarely read the rest before assuming the worst. You know, people on Twitter, they don't try to persuade me like I'm a human being. They order me around. They tell me what to believe. They demand that I say exactly what they want me to say or else. It's extremely objectifying. Now, to be clear, that's not to say that cancelling has no place in the world. I don't believe that.  Shut the f- In some cases, I personally find it completely warranted to try and call for the cancellation of a certain project. A good example of this could be Kathleen Hale who is quite literally capitalizing off of an incident where she stalked someone who left her a negative review. I think giving someone a platform to make a profit off of a criminal activity should not be allowed and I don't think it's an example that should be set. But I think the important distinguishing flag here when we consider cancelling someone is intent. And with that, we come full circle. I believe that at the center of the poop storm that is booked to a chaos, the main issue is actually a rather simple one. And that is that the worst of the culture we're discussing here, cancel culture, again, not synonymous with holding people accountable, but the worst of cancel culture is when we're assuming that whoever the target is, whoever the villain is in this case has the worst intentions that you yourself are capable of imagining. Perhaps the author was simply unaware of the implications of what they were writing. Perhaps you misinterpreted what they wrote.  Worse still is that if someone does disagree with you, then they, by extension, must be just as bad as the person that you're vilifying. Assuming the intent of someone, or worse, assuming the intent of someone defending that person is a form of gaslighting that would not be acceptable in any other social construct. Or in blatant terms, we, the people in a power position who have a lot of followers tell the people who otherwise would read that book or support that book that they will be shunned from the community and or their names will be dragged in the streets and or if they have like a livelihood in this industry and not a lot of power like we do amongst these people here, we're going to drag them in the streets and let everybody know that they have now been ostracized and if you associate with them, we're going to drag you too. If I can put it very bluntly, how you perceive a piece of artistic content is not always and in a lot of cases, it isn't an accurate representation of the artist's intent. Now, I know what a lot of people would say to that and it might surprise you that I would probably agree with you. Intent is not always a justifiable defense for ignorance or lacking a sense of responsibility that a lot of artists really should be taking for themselves. But that's not the point I'm making when I talk about intent. My point when I talk about intent is that in almost all cases I've seen where cancel culture has been prevalent, the thing that has been stoking the fire most is that everyone is assuming what the author intended by their statement or piece of artistic work. And when the author comes out and says, I'm sorry, but that's incorrect. That's not what I intended when I did this.  Remember guys, alienating or disqualifying people from a conversational community based on things like race, sexuality, or gender is a really shitty thing to do. Unless it's you doing it, baby. Slay. Oh my God, say it louder for the people in the back. Yes, Queen. So guess what? You're dead again. Sorry. But the good news is we're back in heaven. Imagine if you will that the trendiest activity here isn't publicly lighting people on fire and shooting at the people who ask you to stop. I told you to get back. But rather holding fair trials where you're required to look at polarizing topics from a different perspective. D-process! We are the jury! All right, that makes us qualified. And maybe even entertain the idea that the person on trial didn't mean to hurt anyone. I guess I just don't agree.  Nothing is treated with shades of gray anymore. It's either black or white. You're either on this side or that side.  It sucks, man. It's not good. And whether you agree with everything I've said or not, hopefully we can agree on one thing. This isn't working. People's minds aren't being changed on either side. We're just digging a rift that is becoming harder and harder to bridge. Now, there's not much I can say about sub-tweeting. It is quite prevalent within the book Twitter community, but it's a Twitter thing in general. Sub-tweeting can be a really great way to share something profound and add your thoughts to someone else's tweet. However, I cannot see sub-tweeting during a debate or an argument as anything more than trying to encourage dog piling from your followers that are obviously going to side with you. It's cheap.  If you're sub-tweeting someone's argument rather than responding to them directly on that tweet, it makes you look like a bit of a snarky douchebag. Like I said, it's cheap. Don't do it. Now, there is another thing and another thing that is talked about a lot when talking about toxicity within the book Twitter community. It is something I'm a bit more hesitant to address though, and the reason for that is that I can empathize with one side completely while agreeing with the other. This is the idea that book Twitter is comprised of clicks or small groups that rarely include others. A lot of the time, it looks like that depends on their subscriber counts or their follow accounts. Here's the thing. To a certain extent, I believe this is true. Like most cafeterias, nice callback, bro. Hey, thanks, man. There will be friend groups that can seem impossible to penetrate, especially if your opinions don't align with theirs. That's a shitty feeling within any community and feeling bummed out by that is completely valid. This is especially true when explosive growth on booktube seems reserved only for people within those friend groups. However, regardless of their intent or whether they do this based on subscriber counts or whatever, the hard pill to swallow is that no one owes you their friendship. That is a truth of life and holding that against someone is actually pretty petty. Sometimes creators gel best with other creators with similar sub-counts because it's less likely that they're being leached for clout. Unless these groups are actively talking shit on people outside of their bubble, they really aren't doing anything wrong. But like I said, I get it. It can be a bummer, especially on booktube where feeling disconnected from the community happens quite a lot. I believe booktweeter is a big part of this, but unfortunately, I just don't think there's an actual solution to that. So there you have it, my friends. Whether you agree with anything I've said or not, these are simply put some of the most popular thoughts among people who think that booktweeter is trash. Like I said, ultimately my perfect scenario would just be that the general attitude on the platform was less divisive and perhaps more open to non-hostile discourse. Rather than escalating every conflict, we would actually try to see where each other are coming from. Otherwise, nothing's ever gonna change. We're just going to continue to yell at each other and yell at each other and further solidify the hate that everyone seems to have for each other nowadays. Anyway, let me know what you think in the comments below. I'm sure there's no chance of that turning into a shitstorm. As always, thanks for watching. Catch ya. She's got class as dark wild. They're real old. Yeah, champions isn't all. Let me show ya.


Hey guys, it's Andy Elliott. I wanted to make a quick video for anybody and everybody in the world that sells insurance. I want to tell you how if someone says no or if they're not sure that they want to buy life insurance, how to close them every time. Check this out. Hey guys, it's Andy Elliott. In this video, I want to talk to you real quick about an objection that I hear a lot of life insurance sales people are getting, okay? Now by the way, I'm explaining how this goes. Somebody is interested in life insurance. They request some information. The sales rep reaches out says, hey, it's Andy down here at ABC Insurance. I know you request some information on life insurance. Are you interested in burial expense?  There's already money put in place for that. Or were you looking to leave some money behind for a loved one? Which one would it be? And they'll kind of answer burial expense. It means at the end of their life, they want to have, you know, 20 to 30 grand so that way they can be buried and no one else has to come up with that. Because by the way, I don't know if you knew this. But people do have to come up with that money. Somebody has to pay for that burial. Usually it's people's kids and stuff like that.  So people have life insurance for burial expense. Then there's also to leave some money behind for a loved one. What does that mean? That means if I'm married, obviously I got me, my wife, three children.  Listen, tax-free check left behind to my family. So they don't need to worry about anything and they're good. Now, I know this. If I'm talking to somebody, I'm like, hey, so Joshua, I want to let you know we got two options here for you. You said you want to leave some money behind for your family you love. Number one, for $300 a month, it's going to be a million dollar policy. That means in the event that you die, they're going to get a million. And then the next one is going to be for $500 a month.  So in the event something happens, this is how this will be taken care of, which option works best for you. And the client says, I don't know, Andy. Joshua, thank you so much for getting me the information.  But let me talk to my wife or let me think on this and then I'm going to get back with you. It's very simple. You ready? Say, hey, I totally understand. Hey, listen, I want to explain how I know if life insurance is right for you or it's not. In the last 30 seconds of your life, okay? In the last 30 seconds of your life, would you want your family to be left with a tax-free check, yes or no, that insured on the worst day of their life? They were protected and the fact that you're going to be gone, they would have money to be able to take care of themselves, continue to live without anyone else having to step in. Yes or no. And by the way, I want to ask you another question. In the last 30 seconds of your life, if your family is important to you, if you had to write a check for what your family's safety is worth to you, you probably couldn't write the check, could you? But if you could write the check, it would have to be at worth at least $300 a month to ensure that they had a check to be left behind after you were gone and you're passing. Would you agree? Okay. Well, insurance is a selfless act, okay? When you go to the mall and you spend money, you go to the mall to spend money on something that you get right there. When you spend $300 a month, you don't get anything out of it. Your family gets it after you're gone. Hey guys, what's going on? It's Andy. A lot of you leave comments telling me that you need help. Do me a favor and tell you the best way to get a hold of me. Shoot me a text message right now,<PHONE_NUMBER>.<PHONE_NUMBER>. I'll help you with whatever you need.  Let's get back to the video. As the leader of your home, there's controllables and uncontrollables. Controllables are things that you can control. You can control lots of things but you can't control when you're going to die. And since we can't control when you're going to die and it's an uncontrollable and you said, if you obviously your family's the most important thing into you in your life, if you had to write a check for what your family's safety is worth, you couldn't write the check but if you could, it'd have to be worth at least $300 a month. And if we know in the last 30 seconds of your life, if you had to look up and realize is my family protected, you by taking action right now could say yes, they are protected and in the event something does happen on the worst day of their life when they're when they're grieving and mourning without you, guess what? You'll know that they have a tax-free check in their hand so that they're going to be taken care of so no other man has to step in the home and help them out. They can help take care of themselves because of a decision you made today. A selfless decision. A decision that most fathers and most men don't make anymore because they're too busy watching football and drinking beer.  I've already done the same thing that you're about to do for your family and it makes me feel good at night and sleep like a baby. So can we pass go and make sure your family's taken care of? Yes, great, let's wrap this up. Boom! That's how we do it. Grab a pen, grab a piece of paper, write down this clothes, go back and watch this video 50 times. If you got some buddies that sell life insurance, send it to them. Comment below. Love you guys. See you soon. Hey guys, I just want to tell you, you're the true one percenters. You made it till the end of the video. Do me a favor, share it with the friend that wants to go to another level. Make sure you like the video, comment below so I know who you are. Set your notifications and then subscribe to the channel. We got daily sales training videos dropping. I'll see you soon.


The best way to solve problems is asking better questions And we don't have really good insights from the famous It's from the book both of the movie the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.  Mm-hmm, and so we'll use this person as example I'll call him Charlie and Charlie is you know, he's making good money, but he's a provider of his house And you can't just tell Charlie to quit. He has a daughter. He has a wife How was all this stuff right? Yeah, so what does Charlie do Charlie just continues what he's doing and for him It's bleak because he doesn't see any other options. Where else can you get a job? He's getting paid a hundred K six figure salary. Yeah, but the problem is Charlie doesn't have proper Mental frameworks or models. Yes, ask better questions Better questions for sure better understanding. I feel like you're right about mental frameworks I mean mental frameworks go beyond Charlie's life Mm-hmm. They go how societies are structured, right? And so and what you said is very true also when you look at the lineage of philosophy like we've which is fascinating that since Plato Almost every philosopher has thought in Duality so in a framework that it's option a and there's option B We just dualism. Yes, and you're always trying to transcend from the worst place to the next one whether it's Religion all Abrahamic Abrahamic religions are talking about you're transcending from this world to the next world Which is evergreen etc. You go into all the philosophers is the same thing until now We're talking about the post structuralist post modernist like Gilles Deleuze, right? They are talking about maybe philosophy should be about is about not about this duality and transcendence It's about frameworks To understand the chaos of life the chaos has happened But we need frameworks to understand them better and back to Charlie's life and Preventative methodology like yes, Charlie has a family Charlie is used to making a hundred K Charlie has a car But let's go back to how Charlie got to that if you Take a little bit of a preventative method Before you buy that house you think hard if you want to think about it You have to understand it a little bit more about personal finance how that works If you understood about the hedonic adaptation of the brand mill hedonic treadmill to realize there's no end Yeah, you want more gradual progress as opposed to ten million dollars in my bank today And I'll be the happiest and people don't people who say that yeah They just don't know about the hedonic treadmill This is why I like Hinduism and Buddhism.   So people don't know about these inner Wiring of themselves which hedonic adaptation is built into all of whatever I get I want more at At a very small future like a short future from now, right? So when you have that Understanding you ask better questions you learn about these things But we actually have a lot more knowledge in the world than most people have access to or know how to ask because Probably what knowledge is the labeling of knowledge, okay have data Mm-hmm, right same thing. I can go to any website.  Yeah Build data. It's just I haven't integrated. I don't know how it applies to me. The thing is like what scientists need to understand and Neuroscience gets it I think so But there's also there's a reason why religion is so powerful is There's a myth aspect. Mm-hmm. How do how does this apply to me? How do I integrate this data? Into my ethos into my mythology because right now it means nothing to me whatsoever, it doesn't foreign knowledge exactly You need to I want to say evolve it, but it needs to be a chimera You need to figure out how you take this information whether it's like Benefits in neuroscience or benefits of sleeping X Y and Z how does how do we wrap this up? And how do we integrate it into my? mythological belief system This is a problem where we have in religion today religion has an updated its mythological Revolence to be relevant with modern-day science and society. It's living has lived It's model of thinking is based on 1500 years ago. That's the fundamental. It's not religion itself. That's the problem Mm-hmm. It's a fact that then it hasn't updated itself. Yeah, whatsoever. The API's are still old Well, they're not pre API There's no API socket whatsoever and and you're you're dead on I mean you look at mythology It's like the best way to transfer that has been through stories storytelling number one invention of human beings it's and that's why mythologies were so strong because Essentially, and it's always put in the hero's journey like the hero would come battle the the dragon of the time slay the dragon Now the hero has to come back tell its cult the story So that the knowledge gets transferred, right? But The thing with the myth yeah, or the stories the stories are narratives and narratives create our reality perception How we perceive the world? Yes, and this we get in science of cognitive biases. Yes, right this list of them It's like we're discovering new ones all the time and they stack against each other so forth and so forth So these are narratives. It's we're creating is that crazy theory of a biocentrism or we're creating reality as we perceive it yes Like this doesn't exist. There's no reality. It's just how you perceive it in real time Yeah, like and it's through your five senses. Yeah And when you distill it to such simple terms you're like, oh, I understand how what I've Manufactured of my life and my narrative and just like no, it's just your arbitrary version of it and sometimes it's very freeing


Can you give us your best Soto Shuffle? I thought it would be good. Is that good? We had a little battle last year. Wide, and then he takes, and then it's like that. Something like that, I don't know. It's definitely a wide thing.


What's up everybody, Jason here for Jasper's casebricks.com 2021 impeccable football three box casebreak PC number 11 just sold out random number block Patriots Washington and Carolina and again guys we go by random number block Style so we go by the first one on the left side of the certain number dash everybody gets around a number from zero through nine and again we Are giving any in our redemption spot zero any one-on-ones go to spot one and of course any non-numbered cards around am I so the group So we have dice roller here We have gale down a dog. So there you go Let's go dice roll it there, and we have ourselves a four and a three seven times four and three seven times one two three four five six and seven Four and a three seven times seven times three and a four seven seven one two three four five six seven Seven times seven seven four down to two Three seven times seven times Spencer with four gale with nine don't with three Spencer with eight don't any one-on-ones will be yours Brian any redemptions will be yours Spencer with seven towns with five done with six and gale with two It's okay guys in a separate video. We come back I do one more R&B but We're one video away from doing the break. So good luck everybody


Yeah, we on boss talk one-on-one. Yeah, we gonna You said to pop. Yeah number one Okay, why I met him.  I feel that you know I'm saying I feel like he'd train me Wow And no other artists really or producer have trained me. I've worked with dr. Dre as well, too Don't wow you work with how was that? Let me get it. Yeah, I need to know Dr. Dre even I don't care what y'all said man got a billion dollars up right at your wife right now Yeah Problem actually That's all I just want to It's a girl version dr. Dre Wow, that you have never released that the fans will love to hear why me yo yo true first We're all on that song and he put it up.  I wouldn't have ice-cream artist.  Why not? Maybe his ex-wife You know, that's a that's a trip because what you said, you know, they they do have those Encounters with the people that they interact with and when you are stern and you step up and say hey I'm gonna do this business and that's it. They don't want to see you get that bag Way so shit But when you tell him to you can just keep going And yeah, I was thankful that I turned down to know no And because we can talk about that how was it working in the studio with Dre?  I learned how to be on tour like no other Like I literally was on a music boot camp. I didn't have nobody with me What did ice cubes say to you that was impactful that you'd feel like you you took from it I know you said to Park says something but what did ice cubes say to you anything or what did he do? He could have said well, he actually Showed me some things, you know, he had an instant replay machine back then You could program all your music in it and stuff. So when I got signed the universal I was on the up and smoke tour So my first investment was an instant replay machine Wow, I bought the instant replay machine so my DJ can go find my music I don't like chaos at the booth.  And so I took pointers from them and then when the tour was over he said talk to everybody now You know, I'm saying you never know who you don't you never know if you don't see anybody again And I think that that was really important because I do work with people I reach out, you know, I'm saying and I also allow new artists to work with me as well Yeah, we on boss talk one-on-one one-on-one. Yeah, we gonna