Hello my people welcome to the score channel. Hope you're having a wonderful Monday. I know I'm having a wonderful Monday I did a massive cleaning on my computer yesterday. It is running beautifully one of those just full flush install everything from scratch feels good we're running smooth today, and it feels nice and We're gonna be working on something else that's kind of smooth Which is the University of Chicago supplementary essays today. I have since I've been doing these like essay writing nights I'm kind of getting into that vibe a little bit more. I feel like writing some more and I was thinking man What better thing could I write than a you Chicago essay prompt because these are known for being like the craziest prompts Okay, they're they're known for being these like wild weird wacky prompts that Oftentimes, you know are a little bit difficult to figure out because there's such random weird questions And I'm gonna show you those today, and I'm gonna pick one and work on it I have taken a little look at these already. So I I've gotten some ideas for what I want to write, but I'm not sold yet, and I'm gonna keep looking at it And I'm gonna show you my process today a little bit So the thing that makes these essays different is that they're much more creative. These are not your typical You know, why do you want to go to this university essays? We've already covered that stuff This is gonna be more like a really weird kind of question I think it's probably just best if I show you what I'm talking about And by the way say hi in the chat I also want to just give a shout out to all the new subs out here. We got a bunch of new subs coming in we're like a Jersey Mike's making new subs every day and If it's your first time on the score channel first time checking out a live stream say hello I'd like to say hello to you So let me just show you what's going down here for University of Chicago. This is 21 2022 by the way these change every year so This video is gonna be useless in a couple of months, but not totally useless. I guess you can still learn something There's one question that everybody has to do and then there's this one where you got to pick one option And I want to talk about that today. That's what I want to focus on. These are the fun ones Look at this first one. What if the moon were made of cheese or Neptune made of soap pick a celestial object? Reimagine its material composition explore the implications That's a cool question.  I think that's a cool question I think it's the kind of question that I would like to answer not gonna lie Nothing comes to my mind right away though. I'm gonna go through these and sort of see where I get inspired Where I've already had some ideas. I like this one. It's so simple. What's so easy about pie You know, we got that expression easy as pie like something's really easy That's a good question. I have some ideas on that one. I may run with that Number three says in Homer's Iliad Helen had a face that launched a thousand ships a milli Helen is the beauty needed to Launch one ship. So all right. This this one's saying like a New York minute is a period time Basically invent a new unit of measurement. How is it derived and how is it used? I like the nerdiness of this one I like the the sort of Like it seems like the kind of thing I would do make my own unit of measurement but Nothing comes to my mind right away like that's I definitely want to go towards the essay where I'm already feeling a little bit of Inspiration number four says there's no such thing as a new idea Mark Twain All right, is anything original or just a different combination of old ideas pick something anything besides yourself and explain why it is or is Not original. I like that one right away. I feel something interesting there because There's a lot of interesting things with that to unpack first of all the strong statement that there's no such thing as a new idea I think is patently false and I can make some pretty good arguments for why then there's the Pick something that you think is and is not original. I definitely have some ideas right off the bat that I could run with here, so I Think that this one has a lot of promise for me at the moment. I'm liking that one I again I like to think about which prompt kind of inspires me to want to say something about this like where do I get maybe a Sense of agreement or disagreement in this is the first one where I've strongly disagreed with this statement The other ones haven't really given me that same sort of thing because they're they're very open questions This one kind of starts out with a statement, so it gives me something to work with and I think maybe that's why I'm liking it more It said that history repeats itself, but what about other disciplines choose another field explain how it repeats itself That's kind of cool chemistry philosophy What other field could be Could I talk about their English class? I don't know English isn't properly a field, you know, it's just kind of English is English What else what other fields Education is my field. I don't really know It does repeat itself, but That could be interesting actually now that I'm thinking about that one the idea of education in that one has some potential But I've been writing about education a lot in front of you guys And I want to try something different and I think that that one's the least wacky and I want to get wacky They literally use the word wacky up here. I want to point that out They they say downright wacky, so it's not my words. There's In the spirit of adventurous inquiry choose one of our past prompts. Okay. All right. I take it back It's not completely useless then this video could help you in the future Maybe these will be the past prompts that you want to go with On that note, there are some really funny ones here like what can actually be divided by zero I helped somebody work on that last year.   I remember this one, too Yeah, there's There's a lot you can have fun with here. What's so odd about odd numbers, you know There's there's a lot of things you can you can look at here I think these are really cool prompts and I love that they come from students On me a little raspy today, so Right now I'm gonna I'm gonna start doing a little bit of brainstorming and this is sir I I think that we've talked about outlining and some of my other videos where I've worked on other types of essays but I haven't talked to you much about just the importance of Brainstorming especially when you're dealing with a more creative prompts, so I want to talk about that just a little bit I think it's very important for you to Have a bit of an attack plan for your essays Especially when they're gonna be creative and the easiest way to do that is to really sit down and start coming up with good ideas and sort of map Out how you could execute those ideas and I think that I'm gonna I'm not gonna look at each and every prompt here because as I just kind of skimmed over those prompts I got a pretty good idea of Which ones kind of spoke to me more and gave me more inspiration While there are some in here that I think are pretty funny and interesting I don't know that I got like a Spark for those at the moment and I want to kind of follow where my inspiration is leading me and sort of let it flow I think that's important with writing. Don't fight it. Don't second-guess those intuitions Okay, if you feel like ooh that prompt got my attention That's a sign and you should stick to that you should follow that Go down that road and that's exactly what I'm gonna do another thing I wanted to point out about these that I can show you here real quick that it's important to point out is that there is no word limit as far as I can tell they are called extended essays Which they don't say how extended it needs to be but even if you go into the common app And you look at where they ask you to apply for this stuff in University of Chicago They give you all the prompts you mark which one you want and then it says upload your response here and The only limit is the 2,000 kilobyte limit. So I mean in theory You could go pretty ham on these It seems like you could So before we start writing I want to get back to my notes a little bit I'm gonna bust out the pen a little I want to go back to the prompts I'm gonna pick up prompt number two because I like that one that one kind of got my attention That's so easy about pie and I'm gonna pick up prompt number four because that one got me a little fired up I felt like I had more to say about this one, but I'm gonna explore both of these for now. I the others history repeats like I Don't know I feel like my answer to this would be sad and boring and I kind of want to have more fun So I might normally look at this and this one fifth one a little bit more with you guys But today I'm not going to I'm gonna just stick to these. Alright, so let's take a look at these for a second. So I I Like this first question about pie because it's just so simple I think I'm just gonna go ahead and start answering that question. What's so easy about pie. I mean Making it. Is that that easy?  Right? I'm gonna just start thinking about connections What do I do with pie you make pie and then you? Eat pie. That's like basically the two things that happen with pie, right? You make pie then you eat pie maybe Maybe throw it in someone's face. I used to have Nickelodeon game shows when I was a kid Okay, that was like the original squid game was Nickelodeon game shows We didn't kill our participants But you know we all like to imagine that when you were watching Legends of the Hidden Temple that those temple guards did some horrible things to your your friends on TV so That's a possibility Aside from these things. I don't know what else you do with pies. I really don't have a a lot more to say about that So out of these things. I mean this requires some difficulty, you know, so this is somewhat hard Because you got to have a good throwing arm and good aim And it has to be the right kind of pie and the person's face has to stay where you want it to stay or you have To lead it like hitting someone in the face with a pie is harder than it looks Making the pie that can be hard. That can be tough. Like that could be that could be difficult So obviously the easiest thing about pie is Eating the pie. That's that's definitely the easiest part about pie in my opinion so The other thing I'm thinking about here is like Is this the kind of conclusion someone else is gonna arrive to am I am I really this other prompt about originality has Me thinking about my originality right now Like is this the exact same brainstorm that 20 other people have made and are about to send over to this university like Am I really contributing anything to the conversation by saying how easy it is to eat pie? I feel like that's a pretty obvious answer is a wacky prompt. I feel like it deserves a wacky response, but That's the facts. I mean that's what's easy about pie. I don't know I'm trying to think what else I could maybe connect this to I think like so my mom My mom made good pies. She still does she made pies Maybe I could think about that a little bit Maybe like it's easy to eat and that is like a metaphor for life like Yeah, it's easy to eat it, but it's not good for you So maybe easy things are not good for you That could be that could be a thing like it's easy, but that's bad. That's bad, you know, because we want challenges and stuff I mean that That's one way. I guess I could take this pie topic. I Don't know. I'm not sold. I'm not totally sold yet What else we got Here Let let me put a pin in the pie for a second and just sort of focus on that was an ugly line Let's try this now. Let's let's do more pretty line. Okay. No such thing as a new idea Just different combination of old ideas. I think this is an interest I'm feeling like this topic is somewhere. I have more to say and I like that If I wanted to just dive into this a little bit, I mean just running off some some of my first ideas here uh Wrong, I'm gonna say blatantly wrong because new things Come into existence like okay Hear me out, but Can you really tell me that? Like with the internet age There are lots of new ideas lots of things that are not just regurgitated past things I mean I Look at all the memes that are out there right memes like as a mean as a concept that didn't exist, you know Like you didn't have you know renaissance painters putting funny jokes on their art and That's something we can do. Thank you to you know, thanks to photoshop and modern internets and I feel like that's just one example of some of the new ideas that have emerged in recent years which leads me to think that Twain's perception of this is wrong because He's only thinking about it from his context like he's assuming that nothing new will ever be invented and that's easy to understand in the 1800s but like Look at today. Look how much technology has advanced and how that has created new problems and new solutions and new everything's and like I Don't think it's fair to say that those are not original or that these media in which we make art today Like video games for example, that's an entirely new art form and it is an art form and I don't care what you tell me There's never been anything like that before So While yeah, modern things build on previous things. I think there's Another issue here, which is the word original and we can talk about that like I think that this word original Today Gets used as like unique right But Then here's the thing so the idea the idea of it being unique or never before seen you know, I think it's sort of what we think of when we think of original and The reason I'm talking about this is because I want to make sure I define this term in my essay like I have to kind of Present a thesis to this and my thesis here is that this is wrong, but it's wrong because of our understanding of original I think that that's the issue here It's like we we seem to we want to expect to never before see something We want to see something completely brand new and that really truly is impossible But that is the wrong definition of the word original Like that is the word unique. That is the word unprecedented perhaps Original means it comes of an origin or it has to do with something of an origin of the very beginning of the past like so in a way Every combination of old ideas is in fact original because it is going back to our origins. I Think that's an essay I think that's the key thing and I know a little bit about this by the way because I know a little bit about the Idemology the word in the original and it has to do with the original sin of that I'm an even like that concept is very loaded with ideas, but I think that that's That's something we can work with here. I like this. I kind of think this is the direction. I want to go I like the idea talking about pie though Like I think I could make a goofy essay about how eating pie is so simple and how that's a metaphor for life, but like I Feel like the better essay I'm gonna write is the Mark Twain essay I don't know it's so hard to decide if only chat would like help me out I'm gonna start though by do what I always do with just a little bit of outlining and I think I'll maybe I'll give each one To try but let's start with the Mark Twain one because that's kind of where I'm leaning And I sort of want to go in that direction a little bit more. So Let's let's embiggen this a little bit for you guys. Alright, so my kind of main idea is that yes There are original ideas Mark Twain is wrong and I want to focus on the meaning focus on the word original like the idea that We say original is unique but bad because original You know So then it asks me also to analyze something and explain whether or not it's original and I think that's where I can go into Maybe some things that I like that could be Connected to this sort of definition that I have created, you know I think like I'm instantly leaning towards South Park as original um I think that It has a couple good cases for why it's original in that it is you know, it taps into a very Primal need in humanity, which is comedy laughter satire The ability to make fun of and ridicule Is something that is deeply ingrained in us. I think that it I mean if we want to really draw this original sin connection like you know Mocking god was kind of the original sin and If we talk about that South Park's done that better than anyone else I think there's a good case that could be made for like My redefinition of original South Park being original get a couple of examples of those moments in the show where We see that originality where we see that raw primal humanity in that art And that could be a good case for why it's original, you know, um I think that Yeah, I want to take some time also to sort of elaborate on this stuff You know, I want to elaborate a little bit more on this about why these ideas are wrong the idea that uh A new combination of ideas Is in itself a new idea like Modern ideas are complex like that's another point I kind of want to drive home here is that You can't just say oh, well, you just put two other things together and that's that's not original Because if I'm the first person to put those two things together, that's an original thought Okay, like one day there was a guy with a peanut butter sandwich There was another guy with a jelly sandwich and one day those two dudes Met and went to high five each other and accidentally slapped their sandwiches together and got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and they both felt like lightning bolt hit them right in the nose like they were geniuses and If nobody had ever done that before Then those guys did have an original idea. I don't care if they just combined two things that already existed That doesn't mean they were not original So I want to tack that idea of this argument that they presented to me first and I think that that's fair. I think that's that's justified the idea that You have to come up with some pure new concept is flawed now I think I can work on this. I think I can make something out of this I'm gonna give it a shot. All right, so That's what I want to do and then I do want to tie this slightly into myself like I know it said not to write about me. I'm not the topic of this but that's where I think that I could maybe expand on this idea of original new ideas and Maybe bring it back to the university a little bit.  Just try to kind of tie it up together a little bit for the university and be like, hey, you know Maybe I mean the first thing that comes to my mind is that these guys gave me these ideas, right? They've inspired me to think at least a little differently for this exercise and by doing that Maybe I'll come up with some new ideas while I'm there. I think that could be a good simple enough ending so So far we've done a little bit of brainstorming in a couple of different phases I want to go over what we've done already So we looked at all the essay prompts for the second extended essay for chicago And to do that, you know, I just went through each one and I tried to listen to my instinct What is telling me? Hey, this is a good idea. I got excited about this one right away I also got excited about this one right away. I had some ideas for this but none that really like sold me and Obviously if I were doing this for real for my application I probably would give this more thought than just this afternoon And I would probably come back to this and rethink about it and maybe work on one and Come back and see it again another day after sleeping on it or you know Taking some time to really look at what I had written. We're gonna not do that We're gonna we're gonna do this in a live stream today. So I'm trying to go a little bit quicker But I want you to understand that's the process like listen to your instinct and say which prompt got my attention and for me The second and fourth got my attention, but once I really started mapping out my ideas here The second one really the well second of the two that I chose the fourth one Really got my attention more because it got me a little fired up and in the mode of like debate So that's always good If I feel like arguing with somebody it's probably a good idea So Yeah, we're gonna bring it here All right, so let's get our type on I want to start out then with this I want to go back to this prompt No such thing as a new idea I think I think it would be good for me to To attack this but also present my idea about redefining original early on so We could obviously make that question a little nicer sounding later, but we'll just go with that What does original mean? Yeah, you know, let's start with that They said to me I'm obviously me So yeah, I'm going into some uh my my interpretation of this definition to start out I want to start with this original idea and how You know this idea that is presented in this prompt is definitely wrong because of this misunderstanding of the word original and Is This misunderstanding is leading us to believe That nothing can be a new idea nothing can be Novel or interesting and I disagree with that and I think I made that clear at this point And and I'm trying to attach it to that idea of original being unique, but unique being impossible you know I think I can also go back into this outline and add a little bit more content in terms of that idea of combining old Not equaling new ideas And I want to redefine to say that like A new idea As I said with the pb and j example You know Can be a new combination. I think that's fair. I think I can also make a point about that somewhere in here So Okay, all right, so I'm going to be unique about some kind of trace another lineage And this is where it gets tricky for such act Yeah, I think I sprinkled in a little bit of sarcasm and kind of like Casual downplay here. I'm just trying to sort of you know Ease us. I don't want to get too serious about this idea of sin, right? I'm not I'm trying to keep it light I'm trying to keep it focused on the word original So I'm trying to kind of like downplay the word sin by calling it my friend and you know jokingly say Oh, yeah, we weren't trying to say wow that sin was so original like I'm trying to have a little bit of fun with the concept because I'm introducing something that For some people can invoke some pretty heavy ideas and I think it's good to like You know, keep it kind of light. I'm not trying to go off on a religious tangent here I'm just trying to kind of draw your connections to a different way of thinking of this idea Like I want you to think about original not as the You know, wow, that's so unique But as the that was the first of something that was the You know the beginning it was it's more about the time, right when it happened Well, I said I wasn't going to go in a religious tangent, but I think I am going to go just a little bit on one here Maybe I'll backtrack on that a little bit All right, so I think at this point I've done enough Justifying like I'm at what don't we got now about 300 or so here 274. Yeah, that seems about right um so Yeah, like I think around here I have constructed a pretty solid argument for like redefining the word original, right? So I'm starting out with this idea that we tend to miss to find it as unique Instead I'm saying that it's not really unique And unique itself is impossible if we wanted to find things as unique then yes, this idea is right, but I think that's wrong and so Based on these points here nothing can really be unique But the word original can still work if we take it back to this original See what I did there definition, you know that original definition actually Shows us what the word original means So its emphasis landed on the fact that it was the first such act every from that point forwards You didn't have original sins so I make this logical conclusion right then the most original sin you could create would not be the most unique but rather Doing the thing that they did the first time And so by twisting this definition of original. I think I have arrived at a good argument for something that might Be controversial I'm actually now thinking about abandoning south park and going into I so I had this idea of south park is like Speaking to those original feelings in the sense that like they talk about primal things, but then this also has me thinking What if I just go into like you know star wars episode seven and just like Build that whole essay because honestly like that movie was doing I mean it was loved and hated for the very same reason that it felt like a total ripoff of the first movie and I think i'm making a case here why that is actually the most original star wars work since the first one Because it is the most like the first one And therefore it's original It's it's the definition of original all right Star Wars episode seven it is only seen it once but I think I can make it work So When did that come out 2015 geez that was 2015 already? my goodness um It did get pretty good reviews actually Yeah, actually 93 i'm rotten tomatoes That's actually a good point to use in my favor. I like that that supports my my argument We're gonna use that we're gonna cherry pick those tomatoes I'll I'll stop Okay, um Let me drop a few lines for you people. My letters got tiny I want to look up that year too. I forget. I think it was 77 When did that come out? 77 yeah, I know my stuff All right, so I think I think I've crafted a pretty solid argument for this right now this idea that like the Episode seven is so much like episode four that you could take a time traveler from 1977 drop him in a modern theater And he'd be like yeah, I'm watching the same movie and I obviously i'm exaggerating a little bit here with that But I think that that is a good way to sell it like To really drive home this point that this is the definition of original like someone from that time could see this new thing that Is essentially the same as the old thing And have just as much fun with it and not even be able to tell it apart I think that is sort of like a really good exaggerated metaphor for this like to really bring a time traveler in there If I may say so myself You may notice i'm just trying to diversify my vocabulary a little bit like flexing something like temporal vagrant I didn't want to say time traveler again I wanted to come up with a different way to say it so I call him a temporal vagrant You know I mean i'm assuming he's just sort of wandering time. All right. He's he's a vagrant He's like Asking for change in the future Because of inflation then he takes it home and he's rich Something like that like the goo backs episode of south park So, uh, I think we're looking pretty good here So far And I I don't know I might cut this detail out, but I was just thinking what else would some time traveler see in the movie theater like To me the only other thing you would notice is like if I were from the 70s I'd be like, oh, that's weird.  You'd be like, how come all their faces are glowing and looking down What's down there? What is there like another projector on the floor that that is closer so it looks better like So 1970s guy would be extremely confused by cell phones in the theater Because you'd be like, why would you pay to go to this place? Just to look at this little thing that you have all the time like It really doesn't make sense and if you're the kind of person that stares at their phone in the theater um Don't please All right, so I think i'm getting I think i'm getting there getting kind of where I want to be All right, I think I have to finish this off with one more point here Like actually I want to expand on this idea of You know, there's nothing wrong with being original or being exactly as you were before But I want to make it clear that like we do need to have progress. We do need to have forward motion I want to try this to me and like tie this to the university just a little bit somehow I'm trying to think of how to do that. That's the tricky part like Trying to kind of tie this back to the university just a little bit to give it a little bit more sense and meaning to them At the same time, I don't think that's necessary for the record if you're watching and you just don't want to do it that Way, don't do it that way, but I want to I kind of want to try to bring it full circle and bring this concept back so I think that I've given this good argument for Why original can be interpreted as Going back to your origins or having to do with your origins and therefore being similar to the first thing that happened And that being a good thing and that being the case in the star wars film Which was in some to some degree mocked for being The same as the fourth film or fourth episode I think that holds really well This last bit here where i'm talking about this idea of how your origin only gains meaning when you get away from it When you when you get you know to your destination or head towards your destination Is I think that's a very true point like if you think about your personal life You know when you travel right You leave your home fly to some other city and come back to your home And it's when you're on your way back from that trip that you're returning to your origins and you're Thinking about them in a new way Because you've just been out in this other place and you have something to compare it to and and I think that's something That I could kind of link in here this idea that you know Going to this university is leaving my origins and I look forward to that because I want to see How I can return to my origins later and be different and bring them back in a new way And I think that can work. I think this is okay. I think I I didn't want to say the university I didn't want to like go that cheesy like that in your face about it, but I think this is okay. I know they said don't talk about yourself like if we go back to the prompt um, they say Pick something anything besides yourself, but I think I've done that I think I've earned the right to talk about me a little bit And if that's just a couple sentences, I think that's fair They they asked me to do something. I did the thing Now I get to say what I want and So I think I've kind of given this let's take a look at this. How much do we have here? I think we're over five. Yeah six seventy seven. It's definitely a good number. That's about the size of a personal statement That's a that's a tick boy. It's not, you know, super chunky, but it's it's thick um Yeah, I'm happy with this right now. I'm looking at this. So again, just to kind of recap where I went with this again I still don't know about this idea of how I could refute the original statement redefine the word original I ended up abandoning my original I'm now I'm looking at that my original ideas beginning because I uh wanted to redefine this a little bit and I think that I arrived at the idea of it being related to the beginning or the first thing that you do the first such act and therefore Nothing else can be original unless it's that And by making that argument I think I've built this case for why you could consider episode seven the most original work if again by original you mean same as before and That that doesn't have to be a bad thing that doesn't have to mean that it's dull or that it's wrong It's just like that and sometimes that's necessary. Sometimes that's healthy I just got this little something. I can't get out of here. Um, so That to me Is a solid argument. I buy that argument I think it's different. I I don't think this is The case that they are typically making here Not that I really care if my essay is different from everyone else's or not, but this is my idea. So Don't steal my essays and and use them for your applications. Okay, like don't if I find out you did that You know, I send these videos everywhere and let people know Not really But I should because you know that is a real problem plagiarism on the internet is real people And I would like to point out that if you plagiarize your essays, you're lame and you shouldn't do that That's lame. Don't don't be like that. Okay, because it's just not cool, man Don't steal people's work. Um, but That doesn't happen to me yet At least that I know of and I kind of don't really care that much, but you know, I just don't want to see People not taking the advantage of these opportunities to write something Like more fun. Um, I'm gonna leave this Though in the description I am gonna like leave a link to this to preposcore.com like I've done before with the other ones So you guys can check out my work here and kind of use it for yourselves That's one of the other reasons I post those by the way on preposcore.com Because that way if you do rip them off and somebody googles them They're gonna find them from there and I want to you know Make them available for people who would like to use them as a case study I you know, obviously I could make this much much better by going through and doing like a second round And maybe I'll do that one night with you guys like an editing round or something like that So you can kind of see how I edit my work more intensely and maybe try to make it, you know, bring it up I have a tendency and I don't want to sound like I'm bragging. I mean I am awesome, but I have a tendency to Write it right the first time I do a lot of article writing for money. That means like If I have to edit that work, that's money lost. That's time I could have been spending writing another article for money.  So I try to write Close to perfectly all the time, which means Minimal spelling and grammar errors. I don't think you'll see much of any issues here Uh, so Once I kind of know that my my quality my technical quality is perfect Then I can go back and actually review a little bit. I'm sure there's some extra words in here that I don't need I'm sure there's some You know little things that I could improve but point is I want to try to write in a way that doesn't require me to do massive rewrites later If I do it's because I got a better idea And I I still have my outline to kind of go on that's going to help me out So hopefully this is helpful for you to give you some ideas of maybe how you can approach these types of essays the kind of things You can write uh, what you want to say I know that no two essays on prompts like these creative prompts are going to be the same But I do think it does help to Examine someone else's creative style and and their approach and just to see okay Maybe they're doing something that I can try to do to improve my work You know, maybe there's some trick they have That helps me for me. It was learning to outline and like really learning to Explore ideas and then be willing to abandon them at any time for a better idea And that's something that I tried to apply today that helped me out a lot So my people that is all that I got for you today I'll be seeing you on thursday. We've got a new fresh video for you And uh, we'll also be of course seeing you Next week monday two when we do our next live We're gonna be working on some uh more exam related content soon We got more why peruvian education sucks. I saw a lot of you guys like that. So thank you And uh, hope you stick around and enjoy. All right. Have a wonderful


Welcome to Toffy TV, it's the start and 11 show Manchester City vs Everton at the Etihad. Let's get straight into it in Gold Jordan Pickford. I see anything of the day, I think it's got the second most clean sheet in the calendar year. So let's hope that continues. I thought his performance at Newcastle was excellent and didn't get caught up in any other nonsense. So yeah, obviously he is our number one. I'm playing like a 4-4-2 but obviously with the flexibility that the team has shown under Carlo Wantiolotti. It can change and I think, well I'll explain how that can change while I'm doing it. Right back I'm sticking with, I'm not sticking with, I'm bringing James Coleman into the side to play as right back slash maybe one of the back three. Yeah, those of you who's excellent against Burnley on Boxing Day and hopefully that continues. Left back, Luca Dean come back into the side after being rested against Newcastle. Lightning Bangs is great but I think for the way I want to play in this game or I hope Everton play I think he's going to be a vital part of the way we do play. So he comes back in at left back. The two centre backs, Mason Holgate being excellent, being excellent, really made himself. One of the starting eleven I think in the last couple of months is a really important part of the team now. You can see the confidence in him as well and he's getting better as a player and obviously the manager trusts him. Alongside and yet he made a return back into the side. Obviously missed out Newcastle game again rested for Michael Keane but I think he has been our best defender this season. Probably being our best player, most consistent player. So hopefully you know if he is 100% fit and ready to go he will come back into the side which will be good. Now obviously what's good about that is as I said is that Luca Dean can play as a wing back at times and coming in on the right hand side and putting Tybal Sid to be playing in the same position he played against Burnley. Again he can play as a wing back, an orthodox right side of midfield and him and Luca Dean can become the wing backs and Seamus Coleman can drop in a centre back if needed when we go forward. That allows on the other side Bernard to play off the left into a central position again like he did against Burnley and become our number ten. So he can play in that position, I thought he was X in that position so I bring him back for this game. The two centre midfielders, the pivots, I think Fabian Delph will come back in for the game because he gives us that composure in the middle of the park and we've seen that against Newcastle when we brought him on. Alongside him I think he will continue with Guilfee Sigarton, there could be a show for Tom Davis but I think we've got to look after the ball a little bit better in this game and I think Guilfee Sigarton will do that. He's done quite well recently but he's defensively being good. It's just what he's got in the tank to be honest this time of year. But I think he'll continue in there and I think with all those other players around him and the pace you've got going forward I think those two are good enough. Most athletic too but I think they'll do what we need them to do, hopefully fingers crossed. To those two and as I said Bernard on the left coming in and playing more centre and that just leaves with Charleston who will play again as that split striker, the ability to go on the left, the ability to go on the right, the ability to go and become another striker. The ability to drop midfield, he's just been so important in the last few games for us. Wakeleys is absolutely phenomenal and he's doing a fantastic job and ahead of him Dominic Arvindlun, Everton's number nine. Doing a great job, three goals in the last two games. And just overall since Machus Overt left Everton, he's been fantastic. He's got more hunger, I wouldn't say desire, just more hunger to get in. He's just got something, he's got it between his teeth at the moment. Now once they play, more aggression in this game, once they score goals, once they get in the box, taking more shots and it's all adding up to him having some good games. So that's my start on 11, let me know your thoughts on do you agree, do you disagree, let me know. If you haven't already subscribed please do, clicked the bell for later you know exactly when a video is coming out. Give this video a like and if you want more great videos join us over on Patreon and happy new year to everyone watching, see you later.


Okay, welcome everyone to this session on Beyond Agile Preparing for Digitalization. My name is Jutta Eckstein and I'm an Agile coach, consultant, what else? Trainer, author, speaker. I started off with Agile, actually with my first XP project. I think it was in 98, I don't know, 97, so it feels like I'm in the Agile world forever. However, well, and I wrote about that stuff, about my experiences, however, today I want to talk about my newest thing, which is also, well, which is the Beyond Agile, and it's also my latest book, which just came out last week, so, and it's available also in India, so that's a good thing. So, well, maybe I don't say more about that. We dive into it. So, preparing for digitalization. First of all, what are the times we are living in right now? You might have heard that term already over the course of the conference, VUCA. I think it hasn't been mentioned today, I'm not quite sure. So VUCA stands for Volatile Uncertain Complex and Ambiguous, and these are the times we are living in. So it's really just hard to plan a year in advance, even like half a year in advance because things will change so rapidly that the plan is worthless as soon as it's done, and therefore, we cannot do more of the same, we have to do things in a different way. And with the book, something else is coming along, which is digitalization, which is the theme of the day, and digitalization actually means that almost every company is a software company, and maybe the company doesn't know it yet. So that's kind of the big thing here. Now, in software, we know that agile is at least the thing people talk about. Some are doing it more or less successfully. However, it's the kind of the popular thing in software, which means now software through digitalization is getting more and more at the core of companies, means that agile is getting more and more at the core of companies. So that's kind of the thing, which is also a problem because, well, if you look at the manifesto, the core values, I assume you all have seen that, who has not seen that? Okay, so I don't want to go into that, the thing is if you look at that, and also even more if you dive deeper into the principle, they have been created all around software. Well, the general mindset, well, general underlying values, they still can be useful, but it's just hard to go in companies and say, well, in order for preparing for digitalization, just be agile. And then they take a look at what agile is and they say, well, that's not applicable for us because if we look at the organizational level or at the whole company, not everything we do in the company focuses on doing software despite of digitalization. There's stuff like HR, finance, whatever, they might use software. Well, they definitely do, but their core product is at first not software. So what's needed is a kind of translation, and this is what we did. We looked at the values and principles and tried to come up with values that are in the same mindset, in the same spirit, but are applicable outside of software. So preparing the beyond, agile, and for the digitalization. And the values we came up with were self-organization, transparency, constant customer focus, and continuous learning. Now for those values, actually for implementing those, there is a lot of stuff out there. And it's not just we in the agile field thinking of how to prepare for digitalization or for being more agile as a company. Now speaking of the lower case, a agile, so flexible, adaptive, responsive, being able to deal with the bookhead challenges, there are many more. So this is amateur, probably you can't read it far back and maybe not even really in the front. There are really a lot of streams out there and I just want to pick a few. There are some specific implementations like Mondragon, Gore, or SEMCO in Brazil. Morningstar, we have heard about them, I think, yesterday. Then there are philosophies like what Senghe is proposing of theory, you might be something you have heard about. There are facilitation techniques, growth cafe, appreciative inquiry, egalitarian methods, holocracy, a big thing, growth blue, maybe not so known. So there is a lot of stuff out there and so we have dived into it and looked at those and took a little bit of a Goldilocks approach. We thought we don't want to go for a specific implementation. For example, what you hear a lot that people say, well, we use the Spotify model. If you ever have talked to Spotify people, they would tell you there is no such thing as the Spotify model. Because they might talk about it, block about it, but the sooner they are done talking, blocking about it, this thing has changed. And so people just copy like one snapshot of what Spotify is doing, but don't crash, but what Spotify really is doing is changing all the time and not having like this one fixed model. So we just feel like a specific implementation is too specific and the other thing like philosophies, they are too generic on the other hand. So it's not concrete enough, but it's all guided us. So what we did was picking four streams where we thought they will combine, address the challenges we are facing and these are the four streams we were picking and you see, maybe we picked them because it created that great acronym with Bossa Nova. So beyond budgeting, which is addressing actually more or is coming more from the finance and HR path, then we have open space as a facilitation technique, but it's really more like focusing on inspiration. Well, on the next slide, I go briefly into all of those. Then sociocracy, which looks more in the power structure in companies and HR, well, I guess you know about that. So now briefly looking at this, so this talk is not a dive into all of these streams, right? So just to give you a little bit of a background here. So beyond budgeting, despite the name, it's not about budgeting actually. Well, it started in finance, but the core thing is that they say we are a system or a management model that is more empowered and adaptive. Well, that sounds very agile to me. However, again, they are coming from the finance path and so the way beyond budgeting says you can implement this is by looking at what's the purpose of a budget and actually the purpose of a budget is three-folded and we are trying to put all these three purposes normally in one number and this one number tries to express what are we aiming for, that's the target, then what we think will happen, that's the forecast, and then how much do we want to spend where and that's the allocation. And so all these three things we put together into one number and the suggestion of beyond budgeting for providing more flexibility and being able to adapt to change is to separate those out. So we have targets as one thing and the targets are at best that's a recommendation relative. So maybe it's a too simplistic example, but still I hope it brings the point across. If I'm a salesperson and my target, my boss gives me is I should sell a hundred units this year, whatever thing we are selling. And let's assume I'm hitting my target and I sell a hundred, but the competitor sold 200, which means the hundred doesn't really mean much. So I wasn't really successful, but I was because I hit my target, but compared with the others I wasn't. And also vice versa, is the competitor only sold like 20? Well, wow, I was highly successful. So targets often make only sense, especially in this adaptive fast-moving world, if they're relative to something else. It could be also relative to our own learning, right? Then the other thing is the forecast, so which is like, what do we think will happen? Well, because things are changing so fast, it doesn't make sense to make a forecast for a whole year, but more like at least whenever something is changing, we should have another look at how, if you think, it all turns out and where do we need to adapt in the chat. So that's the second thing. And then the third thing, and I have to, well, at least it's a warning probably for myself, so when I see resource, and here's the resource allocation, what I think with my actual background, I think resource, oh, somebody uses this bad term for people, and we know that people are not resources, they are humans. The unbudgeting people mean with resource actually the money. So it deals with like, where do we spend the money? And of course we can spend the money also on people, so there is a connection, but we can spend it on all kinds of things. The recommendation here is to have a dynamic resource allocation, meaning whatever we learn from now the rolling forecast, we make a decision where is it wise for us to spend the money on. What kind of product or project or however you run your company, and that's the beyond budgeting thing. Now, how am I doing? I don't know. Open space, the other stream coming here in it. So let me do a check, who knows open space? There are some.  So basically, open space is based on self-organization, or what I learned from the open space experts while writing the book. Actually, the key word for open space is invitation. It's always based on we invite everyone to contribute, for example, to the learning, but also to contribute with ideas, with their passion into making any kind of difference. So maybe I'll try to do this quickly. So open space comes actually from the fact that at conferences, most is going on in the break because they are the networking and the deep dives are happening and because of that, open space took that as kind of principle saying, well, with the law of two feet, you're not standing with somebody where you feel like, oh, this is boring, so you move on and go somewhere else where it's not boring for you. So you go along with your passion and you're also standing there as long as you want to and you're not waiting until the conversation is starting, you're just started and you're not waiting until the right people are there, you're just talking to the people who are there, so everyone is the right people. So these are kind of the basic principles of open space. So the one thing now taking this on an organizational level also means that, maybe you're wondering about, that passion is bound by responsibility. So it doesn't mean everyone can do just anything. It means it's bound by the responsibility which is the overall strategy of the company. But anyone can suggest anything and just give you maybe one example which is Valve, which is the company being implemented using open space. It's a company introducing games and they are just saying everyone can suggest a new product and if there are enough other people who are interested in building that product, they are just building it. But if there are not enough people building that product, it will not happen. So that's open space. Then sociocracy is mainly based on equivalent. It looks at the power structure and tries to make decisions in a shared decentralized way. So there are two key things. The one is making decisions based on content which says we are asking for acceptance and not for agreement. So it's more can I live with a decision and not am I in favor with the decision so that's compared to consensus. And the other kind of key thing is embed feedback in the organizational structure which is called double linking. So from every level in the hierarchy you have people elected as representatives which will be one level in the hierarchy higher up and represent the team group below or unit below which means the double linking solves that separation of concerns to see with center positions we often characterize middle management. So middle management often where we say okay they need to ensure that the decision that may top down are ensured there but also they have to speak for their own group or unit so they are kind of squeezed in the middle that's why that center position is coming from and so we want to separate this out. There's one as the appointed manager is just a regular hierarchy and the other one is from the bottom up that's the double link building in that feedback. Okay and then there is agile and agile is basically continuous learning through feedback so making this quick and so the key thing with that is to plan to inspect the depth and I assume you all are aware and know about agile so I don't want to dive more into that but those four streams together they provide basically the implementation for those values so transparency is creating transparency I'm reading that out for all involved in two directions by providing information and lowering the barrier to those seeking information so it's no like hiding information because of maybe I want to protect my power but if somebody needs the information I provide it so it's both ways providing it and seeking for it then continuous learning always learning contribute to others learning get feedback and adapt we have constant customer focus especially two days ago at the business agility day that the customers at the core of business agility so focus by it on every aspect of the company product and process structure and strategy individual contribution and people they are all focusing on the customer then self-organization which is use accountable cross-function teams that select themselves and follow their passion with responsibilities so it all kind of brings those four streams together now this is how those four streams build in or implement those values there's actually multiple which is that bringing those two those four together also changes the way we actually should look at the organizational charts and this was kind of a surprise for us when we were looking into that stuff so the basic classic way of looking an org chart is like well the shareholders are in control then we have the board and I have to quote my colleague author John Buck here he often has that nice saying well the board is kind of sitting on a veranda and surveying its property and the property is like the support service teams like HR and finance and so on and then there's production so that's kind of how it is laid out now one problem which has nothing to do now with the whole bossa nova but it was something that came up for us is that for organizational charts they actually depict the static structure of a company and often what we think it also depicts the dynamics but that's not true well at least not in all ways so what you hear when people think an organizational chart depicts the dynamics is at least I hear that at times well if we would work the way the organizational chart shows how we are connected nothing will get done here and the other thing is also that people say well maybe you want to look at whom are you working with and so which is often called trusted networks however even those you can only do snapshots because it depends what you are working on how the connection is really there so for example if you look for career advice you go to somebody else and if you look for understanding a specific technical framework and you will work with different people so there are completely different connections so my point here is an org chart just has like well it still has value because it shows like a main grouping which makes sense in some way so it can show geographical groupings or capabilities or skills or also key connections for working together and producing something so this is more like a warning whenever you see an organizational chart it just does one thing it doesn't show the dynamics and now I said like looking at the four streams changed something for us and how we think an org chart should look like so the one thing is that at the core of the company now should be what's called a value center all those cross-functional teams providing the value for the customer well if the customer is at the core of what we are doing that has to be shown somehow and then there are the support service teams which are more like the connection to the society at large meaning also regulation but also the ones we connect with like suppliers, vendors and like everything we want everybody we want to work with and then of course it's also the ball to whom we have like a direct connection however you always see these double connections which might remind you already on the double linking so that's what we have in mind so there should always be a double link from each side also with the customer and by the way if you read product owner here product owner for us it's more a function than a role so it's more like ok we need to have the connection with the customer and it's not meant necessarily you have that person who has that role ok so this is like this part of the value center as the core there's actually a bit more to it which we call now the art and spirit perspective and this goes more into if you heard Steve Tenning's talk of the keynote and also his other talk this goes more in the direction of strategic agility because now it brings in which comes actually mainly from open space so everything around innovation, inspiration, passion, creativity also more reaching out to the broader community it could be crowdsourcing, swarming all this in order to really come up with innovation which is different than your connection to the customer because you know your customer now we're talking about art and spirit it's going to open up a completely new market and maybe some of them will then be customers later on so yeah I guess that's good enough for here so if it all comes together and still it only has one perspective on it and one depiction and if you would look at how people are working together you probably would find out there are many more errors going back and forth but in the core of the whole art job is the value center, the cross-functional team teams providing the value which is actually the first thought we got from that about that wasn't beyond budgeting they talk about that a lot and of course you probably know in actual we talk about cross-functional teams too and then the support service teams finance, regulation, all of them supporting, creating the value talk about customer growth and then the connection with the art and spirit however they are all connected that's the dotted circle so that makes the whole new thing so okay now what does this mean so maybe now you heard okay those four values different perspective on the art job but now what does it really mean and what it means is and that's the last I hope maybe more difficult picture here is that if you want to change something in a company but really changes well at the end it's kind of the culture but changing the culture is not that you say okay now we change the culture that's not how it's happening culture is changing by different behaviors and habits and they are expressed in like what do we do with our strategy how do we behave and act in our processes and how are we structured and all these three structure strategy processes actually characterize companies it's also something well there's a lot of there are many papers out there or research actually where you see like well strategy follows structure but then there are also papers saying no no there's proof that structure follows strategy and the same is true that processes follow structure but also the structure follows so it's all kind of connected the other way of looking at it when I say like companies are characterized like that it's like the structure is like we say well a company has an organization and that's kind of the hierarchy or however we are structured or it's being organized and these are the processes we are using or it is an organization it is more like okay what's our purpose here which is the strategy so this is kind of the thing how they are together so I showed you that I promise it's kind of the last which is a bit more difficult here I showed you this because what we did is now looking at what are different probes, trials, experiments, baby steps speaking with Linda's work you can do in order to change the habits, behaviors for processes, structure and strategy and this way implementing or preparing yourself for digitalization and again this might not be readable everywhere but the thing is we found those different probes that really track back to okay and this is a way how you can implement something for changing your processes or for changing your strategies I just want to show in the next slides I think like two different probes we have for strategy changes or test experiment and also for structure of course we have those too so looking at probes for strategy one sample probe which is also kind of maybe a simple but an important probe which is called like is trust cheaper and the background is that travel expenses are often really burdensome and they are annoying and the thing is that the way travel expense procedures are built up is that it's assumed that the company can trust their own people the key thing often is well people can be trusted but there will be always like one exception you know somebody will abuse their trust the thing is now we are coming up with procedures meaning that everyone else will suffer from that mistrust because they will be mistrusted from that one abuse of trust so our hypothesis is that such procedures cost more than they save and they are demoralizing so then the experiment what you can do is first of all make a pre-measurement and see okay how is the moral and how is it that people think about the travel expense procedures then you try for three months for example one thing you can try and that's what a company we know is doing so they have guidelines saying well there are exactly three things you have to watch out for so one thing is wherever you are going so you are spending money on your travel it has to be legal how you spend it so no nothing that's not legal well that's a good advice at least then the second thing is you should take care of yourself so don't make anything that well for example me coming over to Germany maybe it's coming over from Germany or flying back it could be much cheaper if I make like seven connections and fly over whatever but that would mean I take care of myself really and the third thing is it should be economically sensible but it's just that really economically sensible and not anything else so it's in relation to what we are doing and so the experiment has come up with for example guidelines like these try for three months and then do a post-measurement and see if things have improved also if the trust is going up here and the moral is going up and if it's not working maybe you should come up with something else and if it's working you can roll it out and so that company I was talking about so they are doing this now for many years so this is working fine for them another example probe just to have like two examples can we be more scientific and the background for that is that well in your company there are probably a lot of places where people are quite scientific so they research or look what kind of research studies are out there and they are using it and learning from them and they publish and so on but that actually typically doesn't happen in management style of working so we kind of the intelligence we are creating on the management level is still kept as a secret and even inside a company every unit starts learning the same lesson so the question is can we be more scientific also in a way how we do things like management, leadership and things like that so it's not done in isolation and the hypothesis is that we can increase cross-company collaboration thinking by sharing lessons from experimentation and there our experiment or the experiment that you could try and set up is having a peer-reviewed journal where you report your experiment management practices and this journal at first probably it's better to have it like company internally and not like across companies however you could also do that which would be another step in your experiment and then you can monitor like numbers of contributions reviews, searches and also users of what you've learned inside the company so these were just like two sample probes that what can be done in order to implement these four values that prepare you for digitalization and the way it's working actually is well you look at what is your own context so reflect your situation so we're starting at the top then you compare the probes that are there to your situation and see if something is fitting and if something is fitting you try and experiment and then again you reflect your situation but at best you also publish that to your peers what's your experience with that so others can learn from it and if you are there then your next step would be not using the probes that are out there but kind of doing the same thing but a little bit different which is now it doesn't say compare probe but it says design probe so come up with your own little baby steps and try those so again come up with what's the context for it so that was the background section what's their hypothesis what do you want to achieve with implementing that probe and then create and post-measure and see what you can learn from it and then report on it and that would be great so other people can learn from it so at first I thought I am absolutely running out of time and now I have realized that I have much time left but this is great because then I think we have really great time for discussions and questions so so far thank you very much and I am happy to take your questions


Are you ready? Yeah. So I look at you or the camera? You can look at me. I'll look at you. Loaded questions. Geez. That's actually really hard for me. Oh, that's tough. I don't know. I'm only 17. I haven't figured it out yet. Cry too easily. Waste it. I was going to say it's 7. I was going to say it's so soft. I said O. Like O-H. I'd say awkwardness. I could say some stuff but it might not be suitable for me. But it might not be suitable for the general public.


Hi everyone, I'm Jason Clark. I'm a professor at Montana State University in the library And I'm going to talk a bit more about a particular set of research where we're trying to think about how do you turn? Algorithmic experiences into forms of data So as far as what's ahead I'm going to provide a little context for where this research started and what some of the absence The bits of that research that were kind of unfinished to me and where you're going to understand or I'm going to show parts of where the next cycle of this research are going and it's really As we started this research we were thinking through how do you teach how do you teach about algorithms and teach to all audiences? From citizens were land grant University So Montana citizens to students to researchers How do you how do you build an audience? How do you teach these sometimes these complex ideas to? all levels of learning In this particular session I'm going to talk a bit more about algorithmic user experience Then pull pull through a potential auditing technique and talk a bit more about research implications So the initial research was funded by the IMLS for us. That's our primary granting agency to the Institute of Museum and Library Services The grant was really about Looking at particular forms of user algorithmic user experience and as the Sort of a teaching moment with algorithms is where we started and what we did was things like Finding ways to document. What are the first principles of an algorithm? How does a weighted graph network work in Facebook? Hypothetically right and then we would we would talk and in workshops or in teaching settings right? pseudo code to just kind of get people thinking in In the code mindset and about how you when you make decisions with a program what that means So this this work was really kind of focused on the pedagogy of the algorithm and you know, this this is the type of You know in a workshop setting This is this is the type of thing that worked well It's just introducing a broad concept giving people a chance to see how it might impact them materially We did exercises with them digital redlining Decisions we make insurance companies might make So there was a lot of ways into this this teaching space But there was a component of this research that Was always a little it felt unanswered to me There are these experiences that we have whether it's in tiktok Whether it's in YouTube on Instagram Primarily in social media is where I was thinking initially Well, we're not really able to Understand What exactly how those those How those algorithms actually might manifest as a data point or as as a data set And what was what I was struggling with was how do you think? How do you how do you start to? Quantify something like an algorithmic user experience like the idea of the timeline in Facebook or Even the Twitter timeline So I wanted to start to answer like what if they what if these things were a little more visible or if we came up with a pattern a set of pattern recognition Where we could actually say okay, we captured a Form of that user experience and encoded it as a kind of data set So in that initial research, we were able to kind of pull apart all kinds of experiences of algorithms If you think about the top one here the masking and this one's probably a little harder to quantify and I know and this demo that I'm initial doesn't really talk about this but I the idea of masks of the things we can the filters we can put on ourselves inside of Tiktok or Instagram that's a form of an algorithmic user experience lawyer cat is the sort of the impact of Algorithmic user experience But again, how do you how would you start to? Capture that experience as a data point And we don't have to go far. I mean, this is last week on Capitol Hill for those of us in the United States Washington, DC hearing related to how algorithms were working in Social media was kind of interesting about this particular meeting or our hearing was that there were policymakers and Policy Analysts and academics talking about the role or the place of algorithms in these environments So for this initial cycle as as the end of that that first cycle of research was was coming about a group of us that were still on the end of that grant and those partners are Mariel Keringa, Julian, Kaptenian, and Tyler Bass. These are these are undergrads that were that kind of worked throughout the project To just just answer some of the questions that we were talking through the first part about the kinds of kinds of ways you might teach or introduce these these concepts but one of the things we all settled on was an idea of the YouTube recommendation This is a little dated from 2018, but that the time or the principle of it does still stand that a lot of the way that people are kept and Moved through the YouTube ecosystem is through this recommendation engine So that seems like a particularly as far as a demo proof of concept for parts of this project We're really useful for us to think about And where we started and this is a screenshot of an algebra queer a query for algebra With mice, I'm the actual profile that that it's using right now And if you look on the left you can see from it's quickly moving me from the query about algebra to various What I would say what we what we classified as out of scope Types of recommendations. This was a way for us to kind of balance and analyze the The algorithm But it's it's instructive because it kind of shows how quickly that recommendation engine moves from original query to different types of personalization I Am not interested in lumber prices, but there it was so So this case study really was about how would you begin to audit this experience? I mentioned to Mariela, Julian and Tyler before and Before I leave this slide The thing that we started with we wanted to try to use the API To kind of see how How recommendations were happening for particular for particular Videos and subject topics but we realized that that without the Simulation I'm gonna talk about this in a second as far as the the kind of processes you should follow if you want to start to do this Um those The YouTube Let's go back The pure research actually did their YouTube recommendation algorithm study Used only the API and what we realized is that there's real limitation there because without the kind of personalization and the web browsing the browser experience you don't You don't fall into these rabbit holes that you see Like like in this example where it's trying to pull you out of scope So the first thing we had to do was think through how do you simulate a user and so this was creating a user agent and Particularly moving to web scraping and harvesting not a bi Data mining Okay, so that's one of the first step and one of the goals of this Session is to just kind of introduce How you might start to do this and again, we're at the kind of the early cycles of this So step one is move away from even though those APIs are available, whether it's tiktok or Instagram Or YouTube you're not going to get the ability to understand actual algorithmic user experience or Record it more importantly Without using some kind of first simulating a user in a profile Step two is actually taking what you're seeing. So on that page scraping identifying the initial Video and then moving to understand and classify the recommendations on the left side of your or sorry right side of your screen right now And this was this was There were certain Signals or tells in the recommendations that we use to start to classify good Good recommendations or out of scope recommendations or bad recommendations so things like all caps In In the title or in within here if if a video is screaming at you there There were there were chances that the quality wasn't as good that it was necessarily Might be pulling you out of scope from your original kind of intentional query Things like extra late like we could watch for hyperlinks in the actual description because those were also those tended to In terms of quality those tended to be spammy your videos and just ways that we could grade the evaluate the actual The video itself and then anytime we moved like we were able to sort of have an original query intent Understand it and and kind of note when the subject was moving out of scope and then finally this regardless of Where parts of this Where the analysis ended up the the last thing that we realized was necessary was a way to kind of capture and Record what was there and so that that's step three for us and for anybody thinking routinely about this kind of work Was to package that data data set for reuse and we used The goal was because those of you who I know this is a data focus group they'll know they'll inherently notice I would imagine you would notice that Web scraping and harvesting can be very brittle right a front-end design can change pretty quickly and that That harvest of the title of the video is now in a different set of tags and your script isn't working Another reason to kind of pull that pull that together and make the recording of what the algorithmic user experience was like that particular date and time And we followed the Jumping in to give you a five-minute warning.  Okay. No worries. Thank you So we we followed some we wanted to look at the data set and data feeds as part of the schema But the one that really caught us and really helped us was this way to package a source of data research data with With the metadata with the metadata. This is the row cake row crate metadata specification And if you if you're not aware of it, it's a really useful tool you can kind of put a manifest together and embed even Procedures so it has like behavioral metadata like how you would run Analysis on a particular data set as long as well as the the data set itself Um, so stepping back When you think about this work and again, we're at early cycles and I'm ready for I think we're ready to think a little bit more about further fellowships or different kinds of ways of facilitating this kind of inquiry It's about finding that user agent and profile mapping out your harvesting and data points Collecting and analyzing the data and then encoding those results And there's lots lots of implications here If there's one thing I want us to start thinking or taking away is like, how do we how do we identify? and record algorithms as a form of a day of data as data sets and I think the the the the ghost that was left from that last bit the first part of the research was how do we move behind naming and defining and kind of identifying an Algorithm or algorithmic user experience to quantifying it Um a couple of notes, there's a code repository here the All of the work of the the research is there. There's the auditing tool or the very parts and parts of the script There's a small app that actually does some transparency work where you can actually run a run a search user experience and Look at what's happening behind the scenes and then there's curriculum syllabus and teaching resources as well Sorry you go ahead. That's okay. I just wanted to call out three people Lori Allen Thomas Padilla for collections as data if you're not aware of their work Sophia Noble algorithms and oppression was inspirational for us and then this group the markup which is a new Non-profit newsroom that's doing a lot of this work about how do you not only report but create data and analyze our technologies Thanks. Awesome. Thank you so much. That was a really fascinating. I Am we got maybe two minutes for questions and we have two questions in the chat So let's go ahead and chat about them The first Megan asks does algorithm equal user agent? In other words, are you using algorithms to measure an algorithm? That is so meta. I love it It's much like the view Yeah, um I wouldn't I guess I wouldn't say user agent is a Is an algorithm but Certainly the the work of I guess Creating that profile or of identifying that that profile is something that it feels Algorithmic suppose it's okay Megan. Yeah, that's good. No apologies So we have one more question from Nikki who asks Did you do anything like survival analysis with the recommendations ie survival time to the rabbit hole? No, that's that's a great you know parts of that analysis Really sort of it was very binary kind of like is this a good one? Is this a bad one? We just wanted to kind of get a start But I feel like there's so much more As far as the metrics in that Putting it into a panda's data frame because I work in Python so um and and and building out a couple new fields to kind of qualify the the the The value of like the analysis of the algorithm itself I'm kind of flashing back the web scraper had things like we pulled the duration Of the video, you know, just to see how long things were if that could be an indicator Um But I'm plenty plenty more work to be done. I'm excited to keep to keep kind of asking this question


Now there have always been underground groups that have conspiratorial theories about herbs and alternative medicine treatments for cancer. But there are actually many herbs that are evidence-based and demonstrate some degree of anti-cancer activity. Now from my point of view, if you want to learn formulas and herbs that can benefit people in this situation, there is no more advanced formula science than traditional Chinese medicine because these formulas have been used for thousands of years and up until this time, they still demonstrate real scientific benefit that we can measure in a lab or in rats or in flies and most importantly, in people. Now in this video, we are going to highlight the top eight herbs that are able to fight cancer cells and demonstrate in research some degree of anti-cancer activity. Hi guys, I'm Dr. Alex Hine, board licensed acupuncturist and doctor of traditional Chinese medicine, author of the health book, Master of the Day. So let's jump in. But first, this is what is most important when it comes to the integrative approach to cancer. Most people may watch this video and say, oh, Dr. Hine said, add this herb for my cancer regime in an integrative way. Wrong answer. Just by adding some kind of herb that's chosen a lab somewhere that it demonstrates anti-cancer activity will not necessarily improve your outcome and it's a very important reason for that. In traditional Chinese medicine, what is 10 times more important than just supplementing with an anti-cancer herb in some kind of integrative medicine, integrative cancer care situation is what's called fuzheng truxie and what this term means is supporting the upright and getting rid of the pathogenic. Now, what that means in layman's terms is you're always trying to support the vitality, the resources, the immune system of the patient while treating this toxic inflammatory excess that cancer relates to. So this is different from just throwing a bunch of anti-cancer herbs at a patient who's undergoing chemotherapy or supplementing with that. They won't necessarily do anything by treating the person's resources, by modulating the immune system, the underlying physiological resources and physiological pathways are what led to the development of cancer in the first place. So you have to treat the root and you have to treat the branch. Here's an example. I recently shot an interview in a success story with a patient of mine who had a bad pap smear and two thirds of our cervix was considered extensively covered in pre-cancer cells. They were going to recommend an electro-surgical procedure but she opted to see me instead. I said, give me six months, maybe you have to do the surgery, maybe not. I traded her with a traditional herbal formula for over four months. The next pap smear came back 100% clear. Her career gynecologist said in 30 years of practicing medicine in that specialty, he had never seen that and never seen it that quickly. He was in complete disbelief at the results. He was shocked. I remember getting a phone call and him saying he wants me to come in just to talk about it. And he asked honestly, he said, I've never seen it happen with a woman your age with how severe that dysplasia was. So this is where the formula science of traditional Chinese medicine meets clinical medicine and really helps and saves people. Now, if you love healing with traditional Chinese medicine and you love herbal medicine like I do, I actually have a free guide for daily rituals, healing rituals from traditional Chinese medicine that could potentially help you ideas to your life. It's the first link below this video. In addition, I accept limited number of new patients every single month in my practice in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine. The link below this video has info to call my practice or just email us with inquiries. So let's get into herb and compound number one. But first, how do most of these herbs actually work to support the body and fight some cancer cells? Now, check out this one particular study. This study is called the anti-cancer properties of traditional Chinese medicine. And one thing the researchers highlighted was that how these traditional Chinese medicine formulas exert their anti-cancer effects are through proliferation inhibition, metastasis suppression, multi-drug resistance reversal and immune function regulation. So what's fascinating is that some of these formulas will actually help improve that drug resistance that certain cancers have. It's incredible. We're gonna share some of it in just a sec. Herb and compound number one is berberine. Now, berberine is common in lots of herbs in traditional Chinese medicine, like for example, Huangqin, scudallaria and Huanglian, which are coptis. These are the very, very, very most bitter antibacterial herbs really that we have in traditional Chinese medicine. Now, in one particular study, they highlighted that berberine is an alkaloid mainly extracted from medicinal plants such as the coptis that we mentioned and for example, another one is fellow dendron. But berberine has diverse pharmacological effects and is normally used for the treatment of gastroenteritis. Now, these herbs, Huangqin, Huanglian, scudallaria and coptis or coptidis are very commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine for conditions involving what we call damp heat, bacterial conditions, fungal conditions, SIBO inflammatory conditions, upper respiratory infections with sore throats and that sort of thing. Of course, many types of ENT cancers present with for example, chronic sore throats and difficulty swallowing as well. Herb and compound number two are called artemisinins and in particular, we're highlighting the plant called Qinghao. Now, in one research paper, they found that artemisinin is derived from the annual wormwood or artemisia which was originally used as traditional Chinese medicine for treating malaria and related symptoms such as fever and chills. Now, what's fascinating is the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine was given to a Chinese scientist who found this compound from a book from a famous traditional Chinese medicine doctor. Now, Qinghao is primarily used for conditions that we say involve summer heat in traditional Chinese medicine. Like for example, think of like heat stroke where people are having these symptoms in the summer, the peak of summer where it's hot and it's damp and it's humid. On top of that, it's often used for fevers, bleeding and actually for malaria itself. Compound and herb number three, ginsenocytes very commonly found in ginseng or renchen. Now, check out this paper. They found that these ginsenocytes are the main bioactive triterpenoids derived from a couple different plants but let's just focus on ginseng because it's well known. It has various biological effects including being anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer. They mainly exert their anti-cancer effects in colorectal, breast, lung and liver cancers through inhibiting cell proliferation and migration, angiogenesis and reversing drug resistance which is fascinating. Now, ginseng we typically use in TCM for digestive problems, interestingly enough. People with bloating and fatigue and loose stools kind of an anemic looking presentation as well as conditions involving sometimes SIBO small intestine bacterial overgrow and also people who tend towards low immunity or chronic fatigue. Sometimes it's actually used in cancer treatments in China for people who are having low blood values that could endanger their ability to continue taking conventional care. So to elevate those blood values and on top of that to mitigate chemo related fatigue. Herb and compound number four, emotin or the plant plosho. Now in one particular study they found that this compound is derived from many different plants. In this case we'll focus on hushouwu but it can inhibit tumor growth and metastasis in triple negative breast cancer cells and human colorectal cancer. Now we use hushouwu, it's famous for the plant that can actually bring back black hair. And we attribute a lot of this premature graying or normal graying to what we call the kidney and liver yin. It's like the blood or the reserves or the essence of those kidneys. So it treats the kidney and the liver. It can treat premature aging, graying, urinary dysfunction, sexual dysfunction as well as insomnia. Now herb and compound number five is found in a plant called danchen or salvia. Now in one research paper, they found that danchen has various pharmacological effects. It's also anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-atherosclerotic and has cardiovascular protection. Now it has anti-cancer activities in the stomach, prostate, lung, breast and colon cancer. Now danchen is typically used for what we call blood stasis or blood stagnation. So you see it commonly used in two patterns. One, cardiovascular issues, chest pain. So there's actually real significant evidence about how danchen can protect the heart and even mitigate the effects like for example, cardiovascular damage that happens from cigarette smoking. It can help mitigate that. But it's also used for other issues involving the blood in TCM like menstrual irregularities or painful menses. Urban compound number six is found in a plant called huangchen or scularia. Now in one research paper, they found that like many of these herbs, it's anti-viral, anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and has neuroprotective activities. It has various anti-cancer effects in many cancers including the lung, breast, head and neck, gastric and colorectal, leukemia, lymphoma and glioma. Now what's interesting is that it has immunomodulatory effects in cancer cells. It actually enhances the recruitment of certain cells into the tumor tissues themselves and also down regulates the levels of a certain molecule that can promote anti-tumor immunity. Hangchen we typically use for inflammatory issues. Upper respiratory infections with sore throats, strep, tonsillitis, that kind of thing. Also is very commonly used for gallbladder issues. People who have gallbladder sludge or acid reflux. Herb and compound number seven is huangchi. So huangchi is fascinating because you can go right to the Memorial Sloan Cancering Center to read about the benefits of astragalus as it's called. Now right on the Memorial Sloan Cancering Center, they say astragalus shows anti-cancer effects against gastric, colon, paddock and ovarian cancer cells. As well as what's interesting is that it can decrease the side effects. They mentioned one particular treatment. It can actually enhance it, the efficacy and decrease the side effects. In addition, it enhanced platinum-based chemotherapy and protected against neurotoxicity. So not only did this plant huangchi astragalus improve the efficacy of certain kinds of chemo, it decreased the side effects. And this is exactly what you see these formulas used in China in combined integrative care. Done well, it improves the efficacy of the standard of care and decreases the side effects. It is a no brainer to combine the two safely. One other interesting fact, it's also been shown to inhibit the enzymatic activity of one of the main forms of CYP450, the enzyme which metabolizes pharmaceutical drugs. So it can actually improve these detoxification pathways. Now huangchi is typically is used for low immunity, fatigue, certain kinds of edema even. And we often use it for people who have chronic issues involving exhaustion or like post-cancer or during cancer, chemo related fatigue. Herb and compound number eight is found in green tea. Now in one research paper, they found that among all of its anti-cancer activities, this compound has multiple pharmacological actions. It can suppress cell growth, suppress cancer cell proliferation, metastasis and angiogenesis. And it can enhance anti-cancer immunity. So green tea, we don't typically use a lot in traditional Chinese medicine, but it's one of those things that is sometimes added to formulas. It's considered bitter and very cold. So if people have a lot of excessive heat symptoms or stomach acidity, often green tea is something that can help versus drinking coffee, for example. Now some final thoughts here. Combined and integrative care is best. Just adding one of these anti-cancer herbs because you have cancer to your chemo is not necessarily going to do anything. In traditional Chinese medicine, we emphasize formulas. But here's the gold standard. One study done on berberine, the compound found in two particular herbs in Chinese medicine, found that the combo of berberine and chemo or radiotherapies had synergistic anti-cancer effects. The medication combined with berberine significantly slowed down the cell growth in certain kinds of breast cancer cells. And another study was done in human ovarian cancer. They found that the combined therapy of berberine and one particular drug enhanced and inhibited so the combination therapy of berberine with the medication not only inhibited tumor growth in ovarian cells, it also again mitigated the side effects of the treatment itself. So combined care is the way to go guys. And finally, instead of filling this channel with sponsors and supplements and things that I might not believe in that may not actually help you, I've launched a brand new online course, Introduction to Healing with Traditional Chinese Medicine. It's the pinned comment and the link in the bio of this video and there's a whole list in his brand new healing library that I've just launched. So if that appeals to you guys, check it out down below the video. Before you go, there's more videos on herbal healing and cancer right here.