Sony will not be at E3 this year. This is a shocking story for some people Or if you consider the fact that Sony they go to E3 last year It might not be a shocking to some of you. They obviously have psx. They hold every single year They did a special like launch event or a reveal event for PlayStation 4 Way back in I believe 2013 Or or what yeah 2013 I believe it was And then they obviously have state of plays and all this stuff going on as well to reveal game announcements and all that jazz This is in addition to just hey We can just drop things on social media as well Nintendo does this too, but Nintendo directs and all that but Nintendo still attends E3 but I think There is a grand discussion here obviously if you know is E3 dying how quickly is it dying? Will it be around but what's interesting this time around in Sony dipping out at E3 and not participating in it? is we get details on Why they're not participating in E3 that goes beyond just hey look we want to host our own events actually it seems that there is an internal conflict Between Sony EA and and other companies that are part of this event presumably Microsoft Nintendo 2k whatever over what they want E3 to be and until that conflict is resolved Sony doesn't really want to participate and Let's just get into it because it's interesting because it doesn't sound like Sony might never come back to E3 But it sounds like until E3 figures out its crap Sony doesn't really want to be part of it and this is in addition to the fact that you know last year Thousands of media members had all their information leaked So I mean it's not like the ESA is exactly sitting in good water. Let's read this It was originally reported by game industry that this here. We are PlayStation will miss E3 for a second year in a row The firm told game industry that is it does not feel the vision for the event is right for what it has planned this year Instead it will attend hundreds of consumer events to showcase upcoming games for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 After thorough evaluation SIE has decided not to participate at E3 2020 So does Sony interactive entertainment spokesperson? We have great respect for the ESA as an organization But we do not feel the vision of E3 2020 is the right venue for what we are focused on this year We will build upon our global event strategy in 2020 by participating in hundreds of consumer events across the globe Our focus is on making sure fans feel part of the PlayStation family and have access to play their favorite content We have a fantastic lineup of titles coming to PlayStation 4 with the upcoming launch of PlayStation 5 We are truly looking forward to a year of celebration with our fans PlayStation has used E3 as a place to unveil details of his next consoles since the very beginning attending the first E3 in 1995 To detail the US launch of the original PlayStation the company's success at E3 2013 was viewed as a major Moment in the build-up to PlayStation 4 which resulted in Sony reclaiming its market leadership from Xbox including Announcing a lower price taken. Obviously. Hey, this is how you share games Remember? Yeah, anyways, that's that's a flashback there. However, E3 organizer ESA has struggled to satisfy all of its members Who have been split over what they want the show to be some publishers such as EA and Sony? Want to see E3 become a fan celebration of games? Whereas others would rather the event remain an industry focused affair The ESA has tried to satisfy both groups by introducing some consumer elements to E3, but with limited success I find this interesting that we have that particular detail that that Sony's like EA I don't know You guys probably are aware EA does their own thing during E3. They do an event called EA Play It is a fan event as someone who has attended EA Play last year. I can tell you right now I think it's a poorly ran fan event I think there are some good elements to it. I think the actual show they put on that you can watch on live stream is great Greg Miller from kind of funny games with what was like one of the hosts last year They've had Andrea Renee and all the stuff that you know the people that I respect in this industry and I think make for good Hosts and I think they did a fairly good job on the actual show that you could watch online Or if you're obviously at EA play in person, you can sit in the crowd and watch as well but the actual event It's kind of Weird They had like a meet-and-greet that you could do with like YouTube and streamer celebrities. That was really I It just really felt out of place It had nothing to really do with EA and some of those streamers they had on weren't even ones that were playing EA games really So it was just a strange Thing to see obviously some fans were really into it But not all the fans, you know got to do the meet-and-greet with them with their favorite celebrity There's just too many fans the events too packed They had the Star Wars fall on Jedi like back room demo that you could watch But again, you had a wait in line for like six seven hours to even get a chance to watch it And and even then like they didn't have playable demos for everything like you know the switch version of FIFA wasn't there and even some of the demo lines were just super long and It's like the whole event existed to have food stands and sell sell food because that's basically what you could do You basically got to go to EA play and choose to do one thing at the whole event. Otherwise you can eat and leave You can get free swag EA hands out a bunch of swag and there are lots of people that are all about that swag life But as an event, it's really not that good It makes it makes e3 look phenomenal in comparison e3 is much better managed With much more to do than EA play But I think it's interesting that Sony who has her own fan event technically with psx is Kind of in that same boat with EA where they want e3 to be a fan event more so than an industry event So what e3 has traditionally been and then for a long time Is an industry event where media gets together media press You know game developers all get together in one space to get exclusive in looks at all these different video games and different platforms and new Hardware and it's really a nice hype cycle But as social media and the internet has exploded over the years These kind of industry inclusive things are less and less needed you have People like me on the internet here making videos and talking about this stuff that don't necessarily need to be an industry insider to have influence and affect sales and Sony knows that EA knows that and that's why they like to have you know more public events where Anyone can basically come in even if it costs money Anyone can come in and enjoy and I think one thing that that the ESA is struggling with because they want to satisfy EA they want to satisfy Sony they want these companies to be part of e3. I think They're struggling with the fact that there is a lot of pushback from other companies probably companies like Nintendo probably companies like 2k and Activision and Bethesda or whatever that prefer to be more of an industry thing because that's what it's always been and They prefer to keep their demos really tight and all that you know if the demo is broken They don't want like a fan playing it. They'd rather be a media member that has understanding that games are an unfinished state Versus, you know a fan experience is gonna go on Twitter and just blast them because the demo broke or something And and it's you know the problem is is the ESA is trying to please both crowds and you can't You have to basically go one way or another They either need to open it up and completely make it a public event or they need to make it You know just whittle it back down to an industry event because Sony Was part of it when it was just an industry event and ever since they've tried to please both crowds Sony's now dipped out so will Sony come back of its industry only maybe will Sony come back if it's opened up the fans Maybe but what they don't like or at least what Sony seems to be voicing They don't like is the idea that they're trying to do both in one And it's kind of a mixed messaging and Sony doesn't want to be part of that mixed message And that sucks for a video game fans who look forward to the E3 press conferences and all like a Sony is one of the major players And to not have them do at least a press conference It'd be cool if they skipped out on E3 the event but still didn't E3 press conference But that's just not happening Sony's gonna do their own events again, and the PlayStation 5 will be just fine They don't need E3 to have a successful launch That's interesting of course is there's an update on this because the ESA responded and said An ESA spokesperson said E3 is a signature event celebrating the video game industry and showcasing the people brands and innovations redefining entertainment Loved by billions of people around the world E3 2020 will be an exciting high energy show featuring new experiences partners exhibitor spaces activations and Programming that will entertain new and veteran attendees alike exhibit interest in our new activation is gaining the attention of brands of You E3 as a key opportunity to connect with the game fans worldwide So you could even tell that they're trying they're starting to think of it more as a fan event I think one of the big hold ups of the being a fan event is one It's two hundred and fifty dollars to buy a ticket to enter E3 And like they're doing this weird thing with like the first day or two is like Exclusive to media now and then like the last days. Oh, I think it's just the first day is exclusive to media The last two days are fully open to the public It's just weird It's just a weird thing they're doing like it's so weird that I'm not even sure that I want to go to E3 this year And that's so it's saying someone that we're Nintendo is a big part of this channel and where our E3 videos by the way Get the most coverage get the most views my hands-on gameplay Get tens twenty thirty thousand plus views of these games. So it's very advantageous for me to go to E3 But I Guess it's a If my interest is dwindling on E3, I have to wonder what your guys's interest is now Phil Spencer was quick to come out and confirm that X-Wax will be at E3 2020 not too surprising since they they don't Here's the Microsoft is part of E3 But they're not really part of E3 They do everything in their own Microsoft theater, which is where they also do Their press their press conference But they literally put the entirety of their events in there Which is a completely separate venue from the LA Convention Center and since it's separate and it's a little bit of a walk Not a long walk, but it's a little bit of a walk from the convention center It's kind of like Microsoft's just running their own private event at the same time E3 is and Maybe that's something Sony could look into running Maybe their own private event of the same time E3 is so it's still kind of part of E3 But then doing its own thing and they just happen to let people with E3 passes in Like Microsoft does but I it's weird what Microsoft because because again ever since Microsoft moved Move their booth out of the convention center into their own theater Which by the way their own theater setup for the booth is terrible. It's horrible. It's horrendous. I hate it I wish that they would go back to being inside the convention center because not only because it'd be nice to fill The space with Microsoft, but I don't like their setup at all.   It's not magical It's just bland and boring and confusing to like there's not really any explanations of where lines are starting It's just it's a mess. I don't like what Microsoft does there But they are going to be part of e3 and the biggest thing I guess is obviously that means we will get An e3 press conference probably all about the Xbox series X It's going to happen and that's exciting because we do have a new hardware Generation launching and at least for one company during e3 They will be using it as a way to really really, you know Grab all the attention because Sony will likely not have an event happening the week of e3 They will likely choose their own time so they can dominate all the headlines It'll be interesting to see obviously I think Xbox series X and PlayStation 5 will both have reveal events before e3 And then I'm curious one PlayStation is gonna have a second event for that, you know, if they're gonna wait till PSX I don't know how long they're gonna wait to talk about PlayStation 5 after the reveal event, but I Don't know. It's I'm worried about e3 in general. I'm obviously worried that it's not gonna survive For long, however, I've been talking to some other Media members that have been attending e3 for basically the entire duration of its existence are pretty close to in 10 plus years at least and a Lot of them think e3 is not going anywhere e3 is going to be around for a while E3 has a chance to convince Sony and EA to come back They have a chance to turn things around though the issue the ESA is having isn't their relationships are tarnished with these companies It's that they are trying so desperately to please everyone that no one actually ends up satisfied And they they need to basically fully commit one way or the other Instead of trying to do this hodgepodge please both crowds They either need to make it an industry event have it be an industry event and just leave it as an industry event That lets fans in through the media or they need to open it up and make it a full-on fan convention like packs You know like gamescom like all the other major events out there that other things, you know That one thing that takes like Tokyo game show that takes place in Japan as well. So like they either need to go full-blown. It's all about the fans or they need to go full-blown It's all about the insiders and the industry people and Right now they're dancing a fine line that isn't working and as someone who has attended e3 as media and with fan tickets I can tell you right now is media It's incredibly frustrating to try to do media stuff in the midst of you know Thousands and thousands and thousands of fans that that make things take longer than they should and as a fan It's frustrating To have some of your time taken away to attend Because the media get their own time times in their own days. So like it's frustrating for everyone There isn't really anyone who's honestly satisfied by it except obviously, you know Everyone can be satisfied by Presca. That's like the press conferences are things that I think Shouldn't really go like select. Here's the thing Sony can hate what e3 is as is as an event They can disagree with what how it's a memory e3 is a convention so they can hate the convention but They just I don't know like they I feel like they still should show up as like Is it press conference or whatever you want to call it's not really a press conference? But not in the traditional sense, but whatever that's what we call it e3 press conferences I mean even Nintendo who dipped out of doing live press conferences still does like a digital event a Nintendo direct You know thing at a set time and it's basically a press conference without the live crowd I'm I hope that the ESA could figure it out because e3 to me is a pillar in this industry It has a place but it needs to decide what its place is it needs to decide if it's going to be an Industry-only thing and be kind of smaller or if it's going to just explode in popularity And be this big giant event like gamescom and in this case e3 is gonna have to get more more venue space in just the convention center They're gonna have to start running out, you know entire blocks or or areas You know around e3 even more so than they already do And and really just explode this thing Into something that is just a big celebration of gaming they keep talking about like it's a celebration of gaming But they're not really fully committed to it being that way and I think if they did that You would see Sony who does do things at gamescom come back You would see EA maybe give up on the whole EA play thing and actually come back and be part of e3 on the whole Microsoft I think is probably not gonna leave their own theater because it's just cheaper for them to do it the way they're doing But they obviously believe in supporting e3 and if you expand things out around the convention center It's just gonna make the Microsoft theater thing feel like a more natural part of the experience So I don't know that's just my my my two cents on this I'm curious that you guys think are you at this point that Sony's not gonna be there Do you not even care because you just care about what Nintendo or Microsoft is doing? PC gaming show is still part of e3 as well. So that's a thing. I don't know. I'm I'm a little bummed because I was hoping for one last major e3 press conference battle of next-gen systems between Sony and Microsoft I was so hoping to see that but it's still going to be a battle It's just going to be not about who won e3 with their next-gen systems Well, we say that maybe Nintendo will have something to say about that We could talk about series x and series s or whatever versus you'll switch pro or switch to I don't know Um, maybe that's a more of a pipe dream than reality. Anyways, he doesn't really think about it down in the console I am Nate jance. Um, again, not sure if I'm attending e3 this year Uh, maybe there's better time I could put elsewhere doesn't mean that I won't be covered in e3 Um, I don't know why don't you guys let me know down in the comments below too If you if you think I should attend e3 this year if you've seen my coverage in the past When we were Nintendo Prime and if you think it's worth Uh getting that coverage because Nintendo is still going to be there Microsoft's still going to be there etc. There's still going to be plenty of games to play But do you think I should be there focusing on those games or should I move on? Uh and just to coverage from home anyways, I think that's it I am Nate jance be sure to like this video comment down below subscribe for more hit that bell icon for notifications And I'll catch you in the next video


My personal experience moving to Beijing to teach English. Traveling for me is more than seeing a tourist site and snapping a picture for your social media. Traveling is the opportunity to explore the world, immerse myself in different cultures, and connect with the people of those cultures. Teaching English abroad has allowed me to do just that. In late 2019 an opportunity presented itself for me to teach English in Beijing, China. I had never been to China before. I had never traveled to Asia before. Having an adventurous soul and nomadic heart that I have, I accept the offer without too much hesitation. At the time of writing this personal experience article, I have lived in China for approximately four months, and would like to share some lessons I have learned thus far. Language and communication. As soon as I received my teaching job offer in China, I downloaded Duolingo and diligently spent at least an hour a day learning Chinese. By the time I was arriving in China, I had studied Mandarin every single day for approximately 90 days. And I was completely helpless. I couldn't even order a coffee or ask for a bag at the store. You might think that I am simply horrible at second language acquisition, but having had taught in other countries around the world, I can assure you that my ineptitude is only part of the problem. Mandarin is a tremendously difficult language. It is a tonal language, which means that each syllable can be pronounced in five different ways, each with a completely different unrelated meaning. If that doesn't seem like a big deal, perhaps a mortifying example from my own experience, would drive the point home. I tried to say can I ask you a question? But instead said can I kiss you? Of course, being a foreigner gives you a lot of leeways. Most Chinese people are delighted that you are making the effort to learn and communicate in Mandarin, and will be very patient and helpful. And of course, we are blessed with living in the 21st century, and having instant translation apps like Google translate, which can make getting things done possible. Having said that if you are considering taking a job opportunity in China, I strongly recommend getting some actual Mandarin lessons with a real-life language teacher. If your students or future employer asked you, why they should hire you instead of just using Duolingo, what would you say? Exactly. Finding your home. After landing in Beijing, your first and most important task, is to find an apartment. From speaking to other foreigners in the city, it is my understanding that in Beijing, it is not a common practice for the employer to provide a company rented apartment. Rather it is more common for the company to provide a monthly housing allowance, which is paid along with your salary, and a range for an agent to show you apartments depending on your budget, and the area you wish to live in. Here is the important part, and this is only my experience, I have only been in Beijing for four months with limited ability to communicate and negotiate in Chinese, upon choosing an apartment to move in the renter, needs to pay five months rent on the first day of the lease. As far as I understand it, instead of paying a first and last month's rent, like it is done in North America, in Beijing it is common to pay three months rent upfront, last month's rent, and an agent fee, which is also equivalent to one month's rent for a total of five months of rent paid upfront. The good news is after you have paid that large sum of money, you then don't have to pay any rent for the first three months, as you have prepaid them on the first day of the lease. The average cost of a one-bedroom apartment in Beijing is approximately one thousand US dollars, which means that you will need five thousand US dollars just to rent an apartment. In the few months I've been here, I have heard of other rental agreement arrangements, but at the time this information was a complete shock to me. I was extremely hesitant to make such a big financial commitment, considering my probation at my job had not even started. Not to mention I had never stepped foot in Asia before, and was wondering how the culture shock would affect me. Instead of renting an apartment through an agent, I decided to rent an apartment on a month-to-month basis through Airbnb. This option has worked quite well for me. Firstly if you take the time to shop around, you can find apartments that are on the subway system, and are quite reasonably priced around one thousand two hundred US dollars. Although that is slightly higher than the average cost of renting an apartment through an agent, you do not have to pay an agent fee. Furthermore when renting month-to-month through Airbnb, electricity, heat, water, and internet costs are usually already included, make sure to confirm with the host. Finally because I had never lived in Beijing before, it gave me the freedom to change location after I got a little more familiar with the city, and decided where I wanted to settle down. I do have to caution you though, before you rent the apartment, confirm with the host, that they can provide the necessary paperwork for you, to obtain your accommodation registration at the local police station. If you are staying at a hotel, you do not need to go through this step, but once you rent an apartment or Airbnb, you must register at the police station within 24 hours. Expenses. Moving to Beijing is expensive. The jobs are lucrative and remuneration is generous, especially considering the cost of living, but making the initial move is expensive. Depending on your contract, your employer may offer reimbursement of your airfare and a housing allowance, but those benefits are usually reimbursed after the probation period, or even at the end of the contract. The cost of living in China generally depends on the tier level of the city you are located in. Most foreigners have settled in the Big Three, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, where the salaries are highest, but the cost of living is also higher compared to other cities around China. The cost of the visa and document authentication can range between 400 and 800 US dollars, depending on the service level you need, how urgently you need to get your documents processed. Airfare can also range depending on how far in advance you can book your ticket, the time of year you plan to travel, as well as the level of convenience you want to pay for. Once you arrive, you would need to support yourself until your first paycheck. In China salaries are paid monthly, so you will likely need to pay all living expenses for the first month. All in all my expenses to move to Beijing had summed 4,200 US dollars before receiving my first paycheck, and that is considering I opted for the month-to-month rental through Airbnb. If you choose to rent an apartment with an agent, you might need to be prepared with a much greater sum of money. Banking? Once you have sorted out your living arrangements, and have all your documents sorted out, you will need to open a bank account and set up your WeChat pay. Money is our cake in China. It is so our cake that even beggars have a WeChat pay scan code. And once you have WeChat pay, you will discover a level of convenience you have never known before. WeChat pay is a mobile payment method integrated into the WeChat app, to enable users to complete payment from their smartphone, coffee delivery, utility top-up, ordering a cab, renting a bike. Anything and everything can be done with WeChat pay. On the other hand, many foreign teachers and families come to China at the prospect of saving some money, or sending money home to family. Although the remuneration is generous enough that depending on the employment contract and individual lifestyle, a teacher can save between 500 dollars to 1200 US dollars per month, it is important to note that if you wanted to send any money home, you are only able to exchange a maximum of 500 US dollars per day. So if you wanted to send 1500 US dollars to your family, you would have to go to the bank for three different days. Are you interested in living and working in China? Living in China has been a tremendously rewarding experience. I am fascinated by the history, the culture, the customs, the people, everything. But I do have to admit that the culture shock of moving to Asia, is like nothing I have ever experienced. The above listed experiences were the greatest contributors to that culture shock, and by sharing them with you, I hope that you can be more prepared to enter this alluring and intriguing side of the world.


Today on The Breakfast Nigeria has fallen four places in the latest ranking of the 2022 corruption perception index by transparency international discusses ahead on the problem. Also on The Breakfast no fewer than 79 peasants have committed suicide in Nigeria in 2022. We'll also look at the headlines on the front pages of today's national dailies. We have quite a number of them on our table this morning all these ahead on The Breakfast right here on Plus TV Africa. Very good morning to you. Welcome. It's The Breakfast on Plus TV Africa. I hope you're having yourself a nice morning and getting up to a brand new day excited for the day. My name is Kofi Bartels. I am messy a boppo. It's good to have you join us this morning. Right and if you're at home you can just grab yourself a cup of tea coffee or even water and sit back to relax and enjoy the program promises to be quite quite interesting. We have an outstanding lineup of guests this morning to do justice to the topics and you will really definitely enjoy the program. Now while you're enjoying the program some Nigerians out there groaning because of the scarcity of the Nigerian currency the Naira the new one. The old Naira is no longer it won't soon no longer be in effect the next 10 days or the next nine days today should have been the deadline for the facing out of the old Naira notes and Central Bank of Nigeria gave an extension of 10 days. Nigerian small walks of life residents of people who reside in Nigeria have been doing their best to try and get their Nairas swapped the old notes for the new notes what we've seen trending pictures videos of and tales of Nigerians struggling at different points. I don't know what should we use as a soundtrack to these videos if we mash them up what song should we use as a soundtrack. Kofi you should have given me maybe Idris we use Idris song that one that Obasan Joe is said to have banned him for. I don't know but you can see the tales of Nigerians you know struggling just to get their hands on the new notes so that they can spend it. Can we listen to some of what they're saying is it possible let's see. I think this has gone beyond residents groaning or residents groan this is residents struggle for the new Naira notes that's what it should be right because that's what you can see right there it's very very unfortunate very unfortunate incident it's also comical it has this comical part to it and if you look at all of the comments surrounding it then you know usually as we always say Nigerians have no chill right but I'm just asking myself how worse can this be really I mean look at all of that that's going on but to be very honest then to talk about the reality is that a lot of persons have been going through too much stress just to have access to the notes so if you walk into the banks maybe that might be different from this morning I I can't really tell but as of yesterday you find a lot of persons queuing I mean for those banks that are dispensing or ATMs that you have you know giving out the notes we're not even talking about the new Naira notes it's a struggle for the currency now people are struggling for the currency cuts across you know different parts and what this is speaking to is speaking to the issue of cashless policy it feels like this is very loud in our ears or eardrum and we need to pay attention to it because at the end of the day those who are actually queuing for I mean queuing to get cash is that there are some services that you probably need to you know exchange money maybe you you want to you want to service for instance you need to move from point A to point B and you definitely need to pay cash because I'm not sure that the call me as we call them or the downfall would be accepting you know transfers and they don't have POS you know for you to swipe your ATM card and pay for what it is so this is where we're actually moving towards yes the CBN governor had made statement yesterday but this also did not address the issue there are also some other issues I mean it's very unfortunate that we have to go through this it's almost really you know nothing to talk about this but it's sad when you see people struggling just to get the new note and what have you it's a good thing that you know CBN has also said that the notes I mean you still have time to swap the note there will be still time for you to exchange this note even after you know the extension time has expired but it didn't also state that it's a means of transaction you probably will not use it to transact after you know the deadline but you can walk up to the banking hall and give it out that's what it is but we can only manage you know we will always manage remember my my niece telling me that you have to manage so yes let's manage let's you know be patient let's be hopeful and everything would be you know better in no time I'm very optimistic yeah um Osita Nisobi is the director of the corporate communications department of the central bank of Nigeria um I have to come out and do some explanation I think his work got a bit hotter after I got into Mayfield a governor of the central bank of Nigeria presented himself uh or reported himself uh at the house of representatives meeting after speaker Femi Pajabi amela uh you know threatened to issue a warrant for his arrest and he gave explanations why he had not been able to attend uh or respond to the invitation or honor the invitation of the house of representatives for the past few months he said he was on official assignment he was on official vacation and had to take a health break and but he gave assurances you know like you said mercy of um the uh willingness of the central bank of Nigeria to obey the law all right to obey the law setting up the the central bank the law that actually gives uh empowers the central bank and empowers him to be the governor of the central bank and we're talking about um uh the provision of section 20 subsection three you know of the central bank of Nigeria act um and that was breaking news yesterday everybody scampered to you know the newsrooms you know online or virtual and fiscal or scampered to try and put the information out uh it was quite surprising then the house of reps uh the committee chairman and members of that committee and indeed in turn Nigerians heaved a sigh of relief so I do not know people will be still at the atm's points and the banking halls and banking compounds uh you know in their numbers like we've seen trying to get their hands on the new uh the new notes but one very interesting thing the uh committee chairman uh the house of reps in that uh meeting with the central bank of Nigeria and led by its governor said was that um you know they didn't need to go through this route to let Nigerians do that after uh the deadline now which is of 10th of February that they could still swap their old narrow notes for the new ones I mean and he said one word communication is what the chairman of committee said communication in fact at the point some members of the committee were trying to hush him up because they felt that he was a good was was about to lash the CBN but he said hey I'm the chairman of this committee and I have the right to talk let me talk and he said see communication and I think he spoke for major reverend Nigerians you know because we've had a lot of unclear things about this particular the past few policies or the past few months the cash withdrawal policy the Naira swap policy we've had policy somersaults or policy U-turns if you want to call it back right now people are not even sure as to whether they can get the new Naira over the counter people are not sure again because of inconsistency in the messaging of the central bank of Nigeria so the committee chairman Messi said you know communication is key and if they knew that they were going to accept the old the old narrow notes after the deadline they should have communicated this to the public if they knew they were going to extend the deadline from the 31st of January to 10th of February they should have communicated ahead of time ahead of time so this is very important well they are saying that you can like you said mercy spend you can you cannot spend the the old narrow note after the 10th of February deadline but Nigerians can swap it the old notes for the new notes but um one is to be the central bank spokesman had to say that after the deadline Nigerians will be able to redeem the face value of the Naira only at the central bank of Nigeria and not at commercial banks only at the central bank of Nigeria and not a commercial uh a bank subject to meeting certain conditions it's quite interesting subject to meeting certain conditions what are these conditions that Nigerians uh will have to find out the uh and those in the country will have to find out but here we go again um so this is where we are uh Messi yesterday I tried to get the new narrow note at the bank across the office as I stepped out I was walking towards the ATM Majestically because I know that bank is a big bank and one of the top banks and he will have money that eats him he shouted from afar money no day you know day so I should go to the other one at uh it's a day or a day somewhere I should go and I said oh god may I go house I haven't read that note you know and what I say is that you know what's happening it's beginning to resemble what we saw in Greece when they had their economic meltdown they devoted on debts and all but it's beginning to resemble what we saw in Venezuela you know it's going to resemble what we saw in Argentina many years ago and recently in Sri Lanka and the sign for economies that are going heading or countries are heading to the economic abyss okay countries are heading to economic abyss abyss is that um you you find queues and crowds people trying to get money out and they can't that's one number two if we're having fewer narrow notes than um we have in circulation these new notes that means that some people will want to withdraw money they won't find it and I think that that is not I don't know if if that is the best because the legal tender is the reason why you have a legal tender there's reason why you have the the currency it's because it drives trade it drives commerce no you know because people buy and sell no so so naturally I mean this will not be the first time we have had you know new narrow notes or changing our currency in terms of the print and what have you and that has actually gone smoothly but you know the excuse and some of the conversations that you have is that the CBN is responsible for regulating the note currency and what have you and it is also the CBN's responsibility to ensure that here we're not in inflation and so this might just be a way to say we're not experiencing inflation as it should be or as it is I mean inflation is on top of the issue and then when you begin to look at it you ask yourself does this in any way solve inflation or it complicates the situation but I like the fact that there's been response and that will be on a you know next top trending the response from the CBN governor Godwin and Mephile you know would probably just put a bit of that rest to us I'd just like to get to that so Mephile or the CBN says that the banks will still accept old Nirenotes the banks will still accept old Nirenote he says it will continue to accept the old Nirenotes even after he said so but what I just said is that the CBN spokesman Sorenson to Jack Merci came out to clarify after Mephile's appearance at the House of Race Meeting what I just said was that he says that the clarification is that you can't go to the commercial banks to swap the old Nirenotes you have to take it to the central bank of Nigeria well I'm sure that not the commercial you know the same just the same way just the same way we have you know there's an outcry the reason for the debt line is because Nigerians have been very vocal they have put out their feelings I mean there's a lot that's been going on and that is also is the reason why they extended it so I want to believe that Nigerians will still talk about this because when you say go to the CBN the CBN is not like commercial banks you don't you don't find it anywhere yes yes so what he's saying this is what he said according to the provision of section 20 because like I said the man had to come out to clarify things he quickly hurriedly addressed the press this is a director of corporate communications department CBN Ocita one is will be spoke to newsman he called them and said see what is happening don't get it wrong don't get it twisted from the start word that that you cannot take the money to any commercial bank anyway because it seems to be legal tender and it says in climbs all over the world any money or currency that seems to be legal tender you know cannot be changed at the normal banks you have to go to the controlling authority now in Nigeria's case it's a central bank of mine so I remember it is own peculiar challenges no no so I also remember but be just quickly to add that I urge people not to sit back at home sorry messy and and and and wait still oh I go central so I don't I don't think that that's you know it should be cast in stone I don't think that that's rocket science if the CBN is settled with the responsibility that's why you have the house of representative or the committee settled with the responsibility of new narrow node redesign and you know the swap calling for a maffili and at the end of the day he's accepted he said yes we stand with the you know with the house of reps at this point because vividly there's also reference to section 20 subsection 2 3 4 almost 5 of you know the acts CBN act of 2007 and that is the the bone of contention is that oh yes when he gets to that time the owner and note you can't swap it it's over it's no longer legal tender but this conversations are not cast in stone and of course if you want to begin to go to the courts to get interpretation then if the CBN is settled with the responsibility I'm just saying logically if you think about it if you're settled with the responsibility of ensuring that yes they are going to take out or you know collect this forms the old note as the legal tender then they'll find a way it's not going to be a big issue I'm sure that clarity would definitely come and I am also hoping that the CBN is listening in the central the governor of the CBN is also I mean listening in Godwin and maffili himself so it shouldn't be a problem right well it's okay that that's been mentioned but we know that we definitely find a way out and speaking to the reason why we have several amps of government checks and balances this is very important I remember vividly when you know the House of Representatives the House rejects it and people we begin to politicize it and we begin to think oh this is about politics it's about a certain political party everything should not be politicized very big thumbs up to you know the House of Reps for carrying out their duty and ensuring that they remind the CBN of her constitutional and you know legal obligation to Nigerians because I feel like he's a reminder don't forget that the CBN governor had been summoned over time you know to appear and of course he made the excuse or he gave the reason why he you know he wasn't able to show up because he was out of the country but the reason if you look at it that they constantly made a reference they made reference to that section of the act section 20 subsection 234 and 5 of the CBN act of 2007 and we're here now so yes it's a good one that you know you will still have the opportunity not to lose your nair you will still have an opportunity to exchange it because the CBN will be collecting whether or not it will be directly I'm sure they'll find a way to do all of that but we need to move away because we're out of time and we'll definitely return with our top I beg your pardon the papers this morning we'll call it off the press please stay with us good morning


Today on VS Toolbox, we're going to do something we've never done in the history of coding before. What's that? We're going to take Robert Green and we're going to shrink him down and inject him into the source code. Just like that. Take a look. Hi, welcome to Visual Studio Toolbox. I'm your host Robert Green and joining me today is Mark Miller. Hey, Mark. Hi, Robert. Welcome back on the show. Oh, thank you. My gosh, it's been a while. It has been, but I'm so excited to be here. We're excited to have you. Oh, thank you. Explain to the audience who you are and then we'll dive in. Okay. My name is Mark Miller. I work for DevExpress. I work on the ID tool team at DevExpress and I've been developing ID tools for about 30 years. We'll develop a tool specifically and ID tools for about 23 years. All right. One of which is Code Rush. Code Rush is one of those tools. Okay. Yeah. And I asked you to come on the show and show us some cool stuff because it's been quite some time. You claimed that you were going to show me something that was going to not only knock my socks off, but that is impossible to do. Well, it appears impossible to do. It appears impossible. I should say that I always blow the demo. I blow the demo by setting expectations so incredibly high at the beginning that there's no way that we can achieve those. But I'm super excited about what we're going to show today. It is when you look at it, when you see it working, it is arguably impossible. It's impossible to build and yet it's not. And this is a feature of Code Rush. Inside Visual Studio. Inside Visual Studio and it is available. It's available now as you watch this. Sweet. So it's available now. I can't wait. All right. So on my machine right here, I'm just going to go out here. I've got a couple of links here. I'm in some HTML right here and I've got a link here that says, I'm so excited to be meeting with Robert Green today of Channel 9. Now, one of the things that we're doing here, if you'll notice Robert Green is a little bolder and so is Channel 9. We have the ability to kind of mark those comments to kind of enhance them. And what I want to show you today is a lot. It's about enhancing the documentation of the code that we write. Okay. Right? And so I've got that. Let me go over here. I'm going to click on this link right here. Okay. So Robert, I'm going to come up here. I'm going to right click on your image and I'm going to choose Copy Image. And I want to do something kind of really, really groundbreaking in history making today.   And not only am I going to make you handsome, but you are going to be the first human being ever to be injected into source code. That's what we're going to do. Sweet. So I just copied your image, right? And now inside the comment, I'm just going to come down here and I'm just going to hit the Paste key like that. And now there you are in the code. And I'm going to right click you and I'm going to choose Crop Image. And I'm going to just grab right up here, drag it down to about right there. I'm going to click that image again and I might resize it. Let's hold down the Shift key so we keep our original aspect ratio. And now I've got you right there in the code. And now that I've got you there in the code, I can come up and let's just copy that URL to Twitter. Let's right click you. Let's choose Link. And let's open a URL. Let's specify that and click OK. And now when I come and click on you like that, we jump right up and we go open right up to the Twitter page. So you could put a screenshot of a mock-up of a UI or something. Put it in the docs. Yeah. Wow. You can put it in the code is what you can do. In fact, let me show you this. Put it in the code. Put it in the comments on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me show you this app that we're running right now. So this is an application that I built for my Twitch channel. Okay. Okay. And this is going to be a bot that's going to have a rocket in it. That's going to be remotely controlled by our chat, the people in the chat room.  While I'm coding live in Visual Studio in JavaScript or C Sharp. So it's a little bit crazy, right? But you were talking about, you were talking about screenshots, right? And if you look at my engine right here, my, let's go back over. But if you look at my engine right here, you'll notice that in the upper, that in the bottom right right here, that engine's not quite lined up, right? So let's just do exactly what you said. Let's take a screenshot like that. Okay. Let's go over to my rocket. This is the class that does the, does that particular work. Let's use the Visual Studio function to go find that draw function. Let's get out to the draw function. Let's put a comment right here and let's paste it in. Okay. And let's come in here and let's crop the image like this. Whoops. Not quite where I wanted to crop it. Right there. And right there. And now let's come in and let's do something called pixel scale. And pixel scale is going to zoom in on this and, and keeping the pixels in place as you, as you, as you zoom in. As opposed to having a smooth kind of scale. So you can see the individual pixels of each piece in here. So we'll do a pixel scale on there. And now we can just put the comment, move the engine to the left a bit. Now here's what's cool about this, right? This is not a comment that's going to stay in the code for the lifetime of the application. This is a comment to myself or to another developer later, right? But it's increased in its visual capacity to communicate, right? That's what's kind of super cool about this. So now let's say you now check this into source code and somebody also happens to have code rush. They would see that. And if they didn't have code rush, what would they see? Oh, okay. Good question. So what would they see if they didn't have code rush? There's an option here to turn this off. For example, I can just turn this off like this. And I get essentially what looks like markdown. Right there in the comment, right? And so there's a reference to a PNG file. That PNG file is part of the solution. What's really cool about this, in fact, is watch this. I can take this code and I can cut it, copy it, move it somewhere else. I can take it with even the method, the whole function. Take the whole draw function, right? Which is pretty big. Take that, come down, take it, put it in a new place, paste it, right? Come back in here. Let's re-enable or let's simulate opening this up on a machine with code rush on it. And the comment moves with it, right? I can take and move and copy. So comments, in fact, even if I do undo, right? Now images in source code work with undo and redo stack as well, right? So here I'm undoing through all those changes I made, right? And then I can also redo and go backwards as well. Sweet. Right? Copy on the clipboard, undo, redo. Plus let's say I do have a developer on my team, right? That I don't want to, that doesn't have code rush. And I want to, I don't want to leave them out, right? I can just come in here and say see, put a little note to them that says see image in solution or whatever I want to see there. And then now if I hover over that, I'll see that as well if I have code rush. And if I don't, I can still see it and I can still use it and work with it. Cool. Right? So that is, that's one of the things that you can do with comments is you can extend the documentation. Can I show you another example? Plays. So now I'm going to go over, jump over to plain 3d.js. It's a JavaScript file. And I've got a function here called get line intersection. This determines the intersection between a line and a flat plane. Right? Where is it? And if I look at the code at first glance, if I'm a new user or if I haven't worked on this function in a while and I come back in, it's not immediately obvious how the code works. Right? Understanding this code is going to take some effort to figure it out. Right? In part because it uses established formulas. In part also because I've got to return null here. I've got to return line here. And I've got to return point here. Right? There is this comment right here that says, hey, based on formulas found over here on Wikipedia. So let's, let's bring that up. And oh, this is what's going on here. No intersection, point or line is in the plane. Those are the three different possibilities. So let's copy the image. Let's come over here to the source code. Let's come over here, put a comment marker right there. We're going to come in here on parallel. That's this one on the left. So we're going to crop the image. We're just going to take this, drag this over here like that. And bring that up there a little bit. And there's our parallel. Right? Take that copy that to the clipboard, come down, paste it in there. Let's paste it down one more time and we'll read, we'll readjust each of these. So here's this one, the line. I'm going to go here and crop the image again, bring it to the line. The line is contained in the plane entirely. And let's come down here, we're going to crop this image and it's the point, it's the one right in the middle. So we have the ability to incredibly quickly That is so cool. Put images in code, modify them as if they're first class citizens without impacting compile time, editor performance, or any other metric you might be concerned about. And this works with all project types, any version of the framework. What does it rely on other than Visual Studio 2017 and Code Rush? Our understanding of languages. So right now we're supporting HTML, CSS, Visual Basic, C Sharp, JavaScript, TypeScript, and F Sharp. So we're getting the big ones. And other ones like Python and other languages will likely add support for those because the engine, the magic, the hard work is done. Supporting a new language is generally not that hard because all we have to do is understand the comments. Sure. Can I show you a few more cool things you can do? Absolutely. You don't have a threshold for cool. Because I don't want to exceed that. Excellent. Excellent. So seeing these comment delimiters in the beginning, I can get rid of those by just putting a back tick at the beginning of them like that. And the comments still there, but it just kind of cleans things up a little bit. And I can also, I can move this just by putting spaces in it. I can add things before, a text before or after it like that. And it also works with debugging too, right? So when you're stepping through code, everything still works. The only feature we haven't cracked yet is printing. That's the only piece that we haven't cracked and if there's a lot of enthusiasm for this as I think there might be, we're likely to figure that out too and solve printing for you. Let me show you a couple other uses of it. Actually, I want to stop because I don't want to barrel all the way through. Do you have, do you have any questions or anything like that at this point? Nope. Any questions I have, I will let you know. Okay. Let me show you another kind of cool thing that you can do. I have, this is my animation for the meteors when we drop the meteors. And as, you know, if you know me, I'm a little crazy. I've got 63 frames of animation for this rotating meteor. That's what I do. My explosions got something like 200 frames of animation. Those are all PNG files that do that exploding at the bottom, right? So I go a little crazy, but one of the things that would be very cool to do in the meteor class that's right there. I just opened this up in Visual Studio, right? I just double clicked on my asset out there. I hit Ctrl A to select all. Ctrl C to copy. And now I'm going to go into my meteor class and I'm just going to up at the top here in this comment. I'm just going to paste. And then now what I've done is in my meteor class, I've got a picture of the class, some visual representation. It's a signpost. Right. And what's really cool about this is when I'm flipping through files, right? I'm going from one file to another, right? And then all of a sudden I land on it. I immediately get that visual recognition. I am on board with the file. I know the file that much faster instead of having to look at the code and recognize it, right? Because you're using a serial process which takes so much more time to recognize instead, I instantly see it, right? So that's kind of a cool thing you can do. You can also, you can do things like this where I've got here, look at this, I've got a settings.default.twitch.bot OAuthToken. And right next to it, I've just embedded an image at the end of the line. I've hidden the comment, right? So if we come over here and we look at this, there's that little, the back tick to hide the comment. There's what it really looks like. And what's going on? Let me right click this so you can see this. If I right click this and choose link, when I click it, it's going to execute a visual studio command, project.properties. So I'm here in the code looking at one of my project properties, right? The setting that's out here, I can click on this like this and it opens it up for me and now I can see it make changes, right? Code that connects with tools or commands of visual studio in some way, you can invoke those commands. Codes that are related, you can get to those other places. Let me show you something else. Let me jump over here into Excel. And I've got some shortcut here that I need to implement. I haven't implemented them yet, right? I'm just going to select that, choose copy. I'm going to come back over here and that's going to be in my main that I need to do. Look, hey, there's more key bindings that I need to add right here. That's this comment. Well, let's just put that in while I'm working, right? So I've got the spreadsheet from visual studio, right? Anything that's out there with regards to, you know, any application that copies and supports a copy as an image, we can put it in here. And even if it's a temporary thing like this is an example, just while I work, right? It's information in parallel. Instead of having to switch over to the spreadsheet and come back, I've got it right in the code. I can work a little faster. And it is an image. It's not a live link back to the spreadsheet. Right, right, right. More cool. You ready for more cool? Yes. All right. So you can see why I was a little bit excited about this, right? So here I'm in this formula over here called distance to point right here. And there's a comment says, hey, it's based on this formula to calculate the shortest distance. Well, the formula is given to me in latex, which is essentially a structured way of representing formulas. Now, you can go online right over here. There's a link right here in the editor. You can go online and type in your equation. Or you can use these buttons. I'll just paste in what we had there. And you can see there it is there. I'm going to make it a little bit bigger so we can see it. Maybe even bigger than that. Very large like that. There's the formula. That's what was happening in the code right there. I'm going to right-click it, copy it to the clipboard, come back over here. And I'm going to just kind of replace all of this with the formula. Just like that. Cool. So I can put that formula right out there. Right? One last thing. Let me switch over into I'm going to switch over into F-sharp now. So I'm in F-sharp. Now, I'm not an F-sharp guy yet. I'm not an expert. I'm barely holding on. Okay. In learning it. Right? But I do know math. And I know mathematics symbols. So when I'm in here looking at this code right here, this code says it's based on the haversine formula. And if I were to just look at this, I'd be like a little bit lost. I have to go look it up. But if I look at this, I see, oh, I think I see what's happening here. Now I understand the F-sharp. I am getting myself up to speed faster because somebody left a comment here that included the formula. And also, if I hover over, there's a link. And if I click on the link, it takes me out to the Wikipedia page on it. And I can just, if I want to augment this, I just take this image, for example, right-click it, copy the image, come back over here. And let's put it right up above. So we just put a comment here, paste it in. Let's use that symbol to hide the beginning. Let's center it on the page. Like that. And there we go. And that's it. Very cool. So that's it. That's like the high speed run through. And I'm just like, I was like, well, it could take a long or it could go short, depending on what we do. But I think I have a feeling if I look at the clock, it's going to be like we're under 20. Talk to us a little bit about what it took to make this. OK. Because you were telling me earlier that this has been something you've been working on for a very long time. Yeah. I first tried this in Visual Studio before there was .NET. And I had only linking and embedding where I'd drop them in. But the problem was storage. The problem, one of the biggest problems with this always is storage. And we might want to take a look at behind the scenes how that magic is happening. But what I was doing is I was just encoding the comments into essentially a base 64 and putting these giant comments in the code. The problem is is that you change the compile times, right? The compile times grow as the file size grows. Right. It's not a good idea. The advantage is it's there and if I give it to you and you edit the file it stays in this position. Right? I tried that and that's how far I got. Ultimately I got to a point where I was like you cannot release it. The upside of all of that though is that I could actually at the time have actual spreadsheets, actual audio files, any OLA object could go in. Right. Right now we're just scaling back to be only images. I was saying only images with this release. And then I tried again when I was in, when I was, we're on code rush for Delphi. And I kind of got close again. But again we ran into the storage problems. I was storing I think externally at the time. I had a file out there but you run into problems when you're storing separate from the file. Right. What happens if somebody like, you know, is also pasting in images for example that sort of thing. How do you resolve all of that? So there's never, ever any collision. Right. And then how do you, how do you open up a code file without having to download the external image or if it's stored low, stored remotely, how do you work offline? There's all kinds of issues. Right. There were, there were loads and loads of issues in solving this problem. In fact, most of the, most of what you've seen, most of these examples are really showing you the UI solution to the UI part of the problem. Right.  Right. How do we get it so it feels like it's really there. Right. I can take this and I can click on it with the mouse. Right. And there it's selected. Right. I can change the size just like I can't change the size right there. Right. Let me go ahead and I'll restore the original image right there so we can get back to that. Right. So how does it, how do we get it to work with cut and copy and undo stack and redo stack? Right. All of those, that's the UI part of the problem. Right. The storage part is trickier but we have a really clever way and this, I was telling you this, so we, we basically, I think about a year ago or half a year ago, we were like, let's try it again. This real time is bolder. Right. To emphasize it. Right. So we've got that ability right up there. We had that going and I was like, let's give it another step and one of my developers sent me essentially a prototype and, and then the prototype, the file name was curious to me and I'll show it to you right up here. So if we look at this file name right up here, if we look inside this we have to go inside it and there it is. There's the file name and I'm like, what is this file name? Is it a GUID because we talked about and, and there are even problems with using GUIDs because if you copy an image and then you paste it into several files, you're going to now have multiple copies of that image stored out on disk and we don't want that either. We want to have an efficient, efficiently stored set of images out on disk. In fact, if I take, if I take this image and right-click and copy it just like that, let's go, we'll go over here into PowerPoint and I'll just paste it in here. I should be able to paste it in. It's right there, but it looks like that had transparency, so it came in black on there in the background. But, I think we're probably going to see the same thing with the transparency here, but I'll right-click here, copy that, because that also has transparency. Oh, it looks like that one's okay. So maybe it doesn't have, either it doesn't have transparency or it could be an issue in the past, but, but, the, hold on, I'm like totally, I was so like distracted by that, I'm like, what's the image name? Oh, the image name, right. So if we were to take this, like say we were to take it from here and copy this to the clipboard and then come in and like say, okay, let's paste it either multiple times in the file or through multiple files of my project, right. So the first time I paste this in, the image name is 32, it starts with 320, right. Next time I paste it in, right, if we were using GUIDs, we would advance it, but this is not, the second time and it's a bitmap that's on the clipboard. I'm not pasting text, it's a bitmap, right. So what's going on here? And he says, oh, I'm using a hash of the image. And I was like, oh, and I started going through all the problems that we were having before with storage. And I realized, oh, hash of the image really is nice because what happens now is when I paste that in, right, I only get one file that's out there, right. The other thing that's cool about that is you go out to that file and you modify it, it updates everything. And where is that file stored? Let's look at that. So if we come in here and we do a solution and we right click and we say open file and file explorer like this, we jump up over into here. There's a folder inside the solution called .cr. And inside there is a folder called images. And if you take that, you can just upload those contents right there. That's what you can do. Now we're seeing several of these because of what I was doing in the demo prior to this. But they're not all, not all of these are used here. If we go back over to the other one, I think you'll see something that looks some all out before it started. Today, let's open that up and go into .cr. Images. And there are all the images right there. And then you can just add these to source control and they go up with the code. Exactly. And come down with the code as well. Cool. Yeah. And I just, it just reminded me of another thing that you can do. If you have a code that's not so good, like for example, right here, I've got a lot of code here. Right? I might be able to, I think I have a template in here called scary. Do I? No, I don't. I can create one. I do have one called nice, I think. Right? Like that. Well, that's not what I want. I might want to have, I have another one called P.U. Like that. This code stinks. Right? Like that. And so, you can put a message to your fellow developers to get their attention and get the whole team's attention. Yeah. As you're scrolling through the code. Right? So you can put icons in there. And what I just demonstrated there was a code rush template. Right? I'm, if I type in a slash nice, I created a template that is just going to expand to the image. Right? That it's already part of the project and put it in there. Very cool. I may be the only time this emoji has shown up. I'm going to scroll that off screen so we don't get in trouble. This is so awesome. All right. So this is a feature of code rush. It is. Available now. It is. It is. It is. And people can, we'll put a link to it in the show notes. People can go check this out as well as figure out, look at all the other things that code rush does, of course. Yeah. I'll put on, so I just put in some of mine right there. You can use it also for branding, right? Okay. For putting your stuff right into the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, if you go to DevExpress.com and we're just saying, here's what we are, here's what we're doing, here's what we're building. This is the experience. Very, very nice. Thank you, Robert, so much. Very cool stuff. Hope you enjoyed that. And we will see you next time on Visual Studio Toolbox.


Hi, I'm Jeff Watts and welcome to episode 89 of the Agile Pubcast We're still in lockdown. So this is another remote episode with Paul in his house in Bradford and Avon and me in my Shed in Cheltenham in the Cotswolds and this episode Paul and I just finished teaching an online advanced class And so we spent quite a bit of time talking about some of the conversations that came up during that class some interesting ones really Including what how to convince people within the team about the benefits of self-organization quite often We spend a lot of time convincing people outside of the team why self-organizing teams is a good idea, but there's an interesting Angle on that conversation And that led us to talking about talking about emotions within the team and how that's often very difficult and often doesn't happen and on the subject of emotions Paul and I even spend a bit of time talking about how we'd dealt with our fears as trainers and coaches over the years and Finally some of the interesting conversation we had about whether it was dangerous Going out as a fairly novice coach or fairly novice scrum master and practicing your coaching skills So yeah, it was quite an interesting episode all in all. We hope you find it of interest and If you're watching on the video, so if you're one of our patrons and watching the video Then we were using a new piece of software this episode. So that's why There's a slight lag between my audio and video on that side of the screen Because we will be using Paul's upload and his speed isn't the best and also that's really that's why my side was a slightly More pixelated as well because he was uploading my my feed through his channel We've we've learned from that and the next time we use it It'll be a bit better But bear with us that's why and if you wanted to watch some of the videos and get some of the other Benefits that we have then check out patreon.com slash the agile pubcast and Yeah, hopefully we will be raising a glass to you in this episode We're going to raise a glass to our newest patron Amy Lane over on the West Coast of America in Seattle Cheers Amy for being one of our biggest supporters. We appreciate that and For everybody else in lockdown. We hope things are starting to get a little bit easier a little bit more normal and Yeah, hopefully we'll be seeing you from a pub sometime soon Take care and stay in touch. I think we're recording. I think we're on. I think we're We're alive alive. Oh Fantastic Hello to you sir. Hello, my friend. I hope I'm not too loud He's using me new equipment today for a new new Software, I suppose you call it with new infrastructure. Maybe yeah, so when we're trying out a new record on remote recording piece of software That we've downloaded while we're kind of using it's called squad cast. We're gonna see how it goes Yeah, well done to you for setting it up so quickly. I know it's a bit of an experiment. We'll see what it goes What's what's the what's the drinks tonight chap? It's what I've been our room. I'm in the bar. What can I get for you? Well, I'm on I'm on I've gone to be the town Well, how have you indeed? Yeah, be the town. I've got a loop who Lloyd See pretty nuts it lupeloid IPA. I don't know what lupeloid stands for It's a six point seven percent And I'm gonna pour it into my glass and see what it looks like I've got it's another one of those I've gone for the packaging type thing the funky Then you know where he's you've been hoodwinked by that the funky packaging But I do I've had a I've had a One of their other beers before and quite liked it so but I give this one a try and Take it. It's nice and gold Little bit fizzy and a six point seven percent. So proper for IPA there Yeah, smell the hops Slightly sharp Not not sour sharp. Just it's got a good a taste to it. Got a little bit of a ting to it Um, yeah, it's sort of a little bit apply actually Quite nice Very good. What are you going for? I got a Choice for you left of my mystery box Lockdown sided in the box remaining our numbers with three Uh five It's like that. It's like the agile principles, isn't it? Now there's only four left three five Slowly getting less principled Three five ten and eleven Hang a minute. No, no can't count. It's been a long day six and say three six ten eleven a Number eleven You have chose all of ten. You have chosen Golden harvest your harvest riches riches side as in a person called rich premium summer sat cider Riches so far and high bridge, you know, how do you know high bridge? Never heard of it, right? I'm a set one of my friends from university comes from high bridge. I think what's it famous for? Um High bridge in Burnham. You might kind of north summer set coast Bristol Channel No, not heard of it But Richie's side of arms there Yeah Think green. Is it a green leisure park? Oh, yeah, people go surfing there, don't they? Yeah, do they think say Think some of my friends from school went surfing it's kind of yeah north summer set coast coastal town Can you hear that I can It's that ice I've gone for a bit of ice today because it's one of the hot it. Well the hottest day apparently since Horses hottest day of 2020 today, isn't it in the UK lovely? Yeah, I've put the fan on for the first day Yeah, and is on in the shed It's kind of a May as it is the towards the date today. It's the 20 20th of May. That looks fizzy It is quite it is quite a fizzy. It's almost like look kind of a larger kind of fizziness to it.  I've probably got looking at it through kind of rose tinted glasses today, but Because it's a nice summer's day. I feel like a cold drink. So it's going down quite nicely apple tinted glasses Oh, so possibly your favorite of the selection so far or? It's it's up there certainly bitches cider and quite quite like that It's just a simple kind of sweet cider says medium on here, but I'd say it was more sweet Very nice. Well, maybe your pal it's developing my friend. I doubt it. I doubt that very much maybe so Yes, cheers And well done. We finished the course today. We were kind of celebrating. There it is. I think you went well Yeah, it's good Small online advanced class Good crowd Yeah, so I'm from a few different places lots of different experiences to share Yeah, some good discussions were had Some skills learned some techniques practiced few teething problems with kind of online Miro we use mirror for the first time didn't really on a on a paired course, but Generally People who seem quite impressed with the tool as well I think the feedback was that people liked the online collaborative Miro tool, which which went down quite well. Yeah. Yeah It well I What stood out for you? What was some of the more interesting conversations we had try to think back now? I think it's certainly in terms of Quite we thought it's a lot of techniques today and yesterday and It's a lot of questions around Product owners that seem to be a lot of how do I get my product owner to do stuff? Yeah, there were a couple Yeah, how do I get my? Product owner to take to look after the product backlog. How do I get? stakeholders to One of the questions was around how do I get stakeholders to take the scrum us to roll seriously. Mm-hmm That was one that stood out for me. Good conversation around that. Yeah It was good There's another one wasn't there around actually within the team itself of How how to help team members see the benefit of cross-functional teams? I thought it's interesting because quite often It's it's usually about convincing other people outside of the team the benefit of of cross-functional teams But yeah this idea that You'd have to focus a little bit more on Things that were slightly outside of what you would normally do your functional area of expertise perhaps Yeah And putting the team first rather than your own interests There was an interesting discussion Feeling jaded No, I wouldn't say I'm jaded I've been trying to sort of challenge myself to really Pay more attention to to how I feel at the end of different types of work that I do and we had a bit of a discussion about about me and my Sort of mindset if you like in how training isn't something that I would I feel I was born to do And I always found it very stressful running a training course used to lose sleep before training courses and things I'm trying to work out Little bit about why that why that is and I usually have a sort of Sort of mini euphoric feel at the end of a course I was wondering whether that was more a sense of achievement or there was more sense of relief That it didn't go badly As I am sort of someone who would plan for the worst but hope for the best if you like And do tend to You are you are a little bit different to me as I tend to let things probably Bit more spontaneous, but you like to know The next so we will sit and plan the next kind of module stroke sequence or session mini session and you're quite thorough about timings and Expectations and so that was I'm a bit more loose I think I I think maybe I've got a bit complacent Yeah, I overly worry about the The quality of and you know people's perception of it and how much you get from it, you know Yeah, go on my Main I fear I suppose my initial when I start I think we had a question today Didn't we about how did we get started with this and how do we become trainers and how do we? get past our beers and and our Lack of experience, I suppose it's obviously some of that with time and experience, but I Think certainly I used to be quite nervous about finishing early That was all we had my big thing about Well, we've kind of got I've gone because I when when I'm Nervous, I tend to rush Okay, so my tendency was to believe that I'm gonna finish like it that lunchtime on day what day to everyone will have to go home early, which never really happened anyway, but it's I suppose it's just how what you get used to and what my But in the back of my mind I worry that I'm perhaps not giving enough that are giving enough content or giving enough value Yeah There was trying to remember what it was now But there was some there was some questions today about you know, what if I was it about coaching? So if I'm scrum master, I'm learning my coaching skills And yeah, what isn't that a bit dangerous and to be going out there and coaching on people when you've really quite a novice Worried about doing damage if you like And my response to that was well the fact that you're worried about doing damage It reduces the chances of you doing damage It's the people that go into things blindly thinking that they're fully qualified before they've really Read a book even that term that are more at risk of doing damage So as long as scrum masters or anyone really is constantly reflecting and if possible Giving some reflection from some guided reflection with someone new or experienced Then the chances of damage are minimal Yeah, certainly, um certain something I've got Get used to Still remember Still remember the you know, the sweating and the mumbling and and Pacing was Racing pace a lot. He used to walk up and down the room Side to side And I think you while you were fully aware that you were doing it, but you didn't have a lot of control over at the time But now yeah, I Thought that was a coping mechanism for so one of my worries is that so I'm not a big talker I'd much prefer to listen than talk Not great at making small talk, you know the train or so and just wouldn't talk to people And so my worry was that I'd run out of things to say Yeah, but I found that if I was walking I had a sort of rhythm and I found it easier for my words to flow And then it became a habit Habit that I especially if you've got creaky floorboards and I've had that a few times Creaky floorboards or a creaky stage that you're on It's quite off-putting for people. So I made a conscious effort then of working out how to stay more still Because the attention shouldn't really be on me and where I'm moving but rather what we're talking about Yeah, I've probably got a bit lazy these days a bit more hands-in-pockets tight leaning on flip charts and things like that I do I'm a bit and I've just got into bad habits.  I hate having hot feet So anytime you'll take your shoes off on day two of a training course Jeff Can show me to do that. I don't think this still does but he was a shoes off kind of guy, wasn't he? Yeah, he was yeah Training with shoes on I sometimes think yeah People might take offense to that smell especially it is it is Culturally offensive in some places. I couldn't tell you which countries, but I'm sure in some countries. That is that is a bit of a no-no Yeah kind of anything else going on for you do you enjoy it today any Yeah, I did. I love the curiosity There was genuine genuine Curiosity about not just What what could be done or what could be used but also how it could be shaped and reshaped and There were times when they were saying all we could could we use this technique in this situation? Yeah, we'd say oh hadn't really thought that but yeah, absolutely would work So and that's that's that's for me a really good sign of people who aren't just taking things as they hear them You know, they're not just taking whatever we say is gospel They're taking it and with the pinch of salt that it deserves if they can use it as as we're using it brilliant But maybe not maybe they've come up with something better or use it in a different scenario or change it And and you know the more you can make something your own the more more powerful it is I think really Yeah I think as well we noticed today that people tying to get there's quite a lot of Tying together one or two different techniques, which is nice to see as well that it's not just about One technique especially with coach that we're doing some coaching stuff today Where people were thinking about how they would compile an actual coaching session and Maybe tying two techniques into one or stepping from one technique to the other Rather taking it a very much a Sequenced approach, but how could you actually combine some of these things? Yeah Techniques are an interesting thing sort of exercises um I remember years ago when I was going through some of my professional coach training They were given quite a few coaching techniques that could be quite useful and I think a lot of people were Overly keen to put them into practice and sort of force them into a coaching session because they've been taught them They want to use them, but also It may made the coach and remember these are trainee coaches relatively new and inexperienced and perhaps not too confident in their skill set gave them a certain sense of safety to have a technique to fall back on to put a process and step one step two step three And rather than the the scary unknown of what we sort of call dancing in the moment Yeah, just letting trusting the process Uh and letting the conversation evolve And it's so often where on as a coach where on earth is this going? I have no idea where where this is going and you know, this put this person or this team is expecting something from me You know, I'm here as a coach. This is my profession um, we could just be wasting their time and talking about something completely inane And I don't think I've really got I could probably count on the fingers of one hand the times when that's actually that fear has actually come to fruition almost always something valuable emerges from that that What you might think of it or feel like at the at the time is is chaos or unstructured uh unstructured conversation really And that that craving of oh, maybe I should dig out a technique and they are open up a open up a book or put out a cut Yeah, this this technique here will save me trust the process Something that I remember Lee Simpson said that trust in the process Lee Simpson one of the comedy or comedy store players that He said to me during an interview I did for him with him for my book. He said it's just I think he said he's either trust in the process or You just follow the process or the process is the process it is something they don't on stage They don't really even think about there's there's there's no effort involved there's no um Stress involved that's a lot. That's a lot to do with the safety of being amongst your peers and your kind of trusted performers on stage, but that's also a belief and a reassurance In the flow of the process of just knowing That something will come to you something that comes to me something. I'll come to me or you've got four other people in your troop That um that also wants to extend But that that is true also in the sense of a coaching conversation Because you're not there alone and that the person your coaching is there With the same intent and with the same focus. Hopefully as you have Yeah, it's definitely a partnership Yeah, you're not alone But it can feel it can it can Incorrectly feel quite lonely. I know a lot of scrum masters a lot of coaches as well who Who take on their shoulders the pressure of of a successful coaching intervention or coaching conversation? um And you know that that I think I think that's a dysfunction. It's it's a understandable dysfunction but There's the having that conversation about Yeah accountability and ownership I think it is uh, it's an important we spend quite a bit of time actually more more time than normal on an advanced csn talking about the idea of contracting Yeah, and the idea of you know, who's responsible for what what can you expect from me? Where are my boundaries and being quite explicit if you if you're changing Stances from for example coach to mentor or facilitator or what have you So everybody knows what they can expect of one another and it's something that this it's just It's so commonplace And expected we're in the world of professional coaching that you don't really think about it But in in agile coaching That idea of contracting about what we expect from one another what we need from one another doesn't really happen I also think that's partly because there's still a The coaching element of a scrum master's role or job description or Whatever that might be objectives From a corporate point of view is still probably quite low down the agenda I think it's probably seen as a fraction a mere fraction of the The purpose of the role from in many organizations that I've spoken to Still see if they are hiring scrum masters. They see them as as maybe 10 15 percent coaches if they're you know but um, I think Only a few organizations would see them as a as largely a coach So would you Would you expect a scrum masters? performance to be judged on the Delivery or the success of the team? I think it's partly the team a part of the organization, isn't it? I think I'd certainly like to think a team has a as a say on the performance or the appraisal of a scrum master. I'm not sure if it happens a lot But or enough Especially I mean that gets even more cloudy if which is quite commonplace and exemplified on our On our course this week when a scrum master is is working with more than one team Yeah, you know, how do you how do you know how affected that scrum master is being? Are you setting that person up for success in the role? and also that was on that point is an interesting thing that One person So a couple of people introduced themselves as people who Was scrum master more than one team another course attendee also added in that Almost like an ambition Of theirs was to scrum master more than one team and I thought that was an interesting Like it like it was a Notice it's a strive for Seeing a position of status where you were scrum master for more than one team. I thought that was interesting Um, and I didn't necessarily at first hand Get the get the feeling that it was a matter of status, but I wasn't I suppose I wasn't really looking at it that closely um, I know from just speaking from my perspective, uh, where Um, I do like to focus and I do like to be part of the of a really strong focused dedicated team But I also really like seeing different things And so for me, there is a sort of attraction to being part of more than one team because I'm less likely to get bored Um, and it's not I wouldn't say that I would see Myself if I was scrum master for more than one team as as more senior or more qualified or more capable than someone who's just got one team I think it would possibly play to Play to some of my Maybe my weaknesses. I don't know but certainly my preferences No, I think you're right. There's um It's just the danger of being overloaded. I think and trying to in my from my perspective of thinking that what works for one team will work for another I'm trying to make my life easier my Managed my time more efficiently By trying to standardize how I scrum master three different teams, whatever it might be Yeah, yeah, it's not. I think it's certainly a lot easier when those teams are I'm not new and Yeah So then I suppose that brings us on to well How what's needed for that to happen and And we have there was a there was a question Yesterday, maybe About how to how to encourage members of the team to take on more self-organization Yes, how do you increase self-organization and how do you You can't tell someone to be self-organizing But like you I think you said at the time that there's it's not binary There are degrees of self-organizing. It's probably a A iterative incremental process in itself small Elements that you might notice I think I'm probably a little bit guilty of because I've been part of and I've I've coached. I've been part of great teams that would do some very what I would call very brave and very, um They'd call call each other out in terms of the accountability would be Quite trunk would be quite in your face that oh my god. That's quite confrontational But I think for a lot of teams that's a That's um quite a step Especially in some of the retrospectives that I've been facilitating lately when the the kind of Instinctive response from Scrum Masters when I was when we were talking about emotions just talking about talking about talking about talking about emotions Okay in a retro and they said that's a step too far That's my team and I we're near that right now and I think sometimes I get a little bit You know kind of pushed Pushed back by thinking really we are we are we back there now? The teams won't even talk about emotions, but to be Blunt with myself and a lot of teams don't talk about their emotions with each other and They're never going to get anyone near any sense of accountability If they can't admit any weakness or any flaws or any need Need to help Yeah, then they don't need to need to know when they there's a weakness that they can they can feel that they can help each other out Yeah, there's um, you know we spent we spent quite a bit of time with Scrum Masters a lot of teams are talking about I say two sides there may well be more more angles, but if you're keeping it really really simple the two sides Of of making a change so in this situation if someone someone in the team Is is resisting this idea of self-organization? Usually there's there's some some concerns underpinning that they're worried about some negative consequences Now whether whether I believe those those beliefs are true or not that person does and I think first of all just recognizing The fear that's that's driving the resistance is is a good starting point uh meeting them where they are they have to empathize with with their perspective and Seeing if you can help them reduce those concerns Tackle those concerns mitigate those concerns Some of them might not be true when we work it through some of them might be And we can do something about it pretty quickly Some of them maybe we can't do anything about and we should just acknowledge that this is Yeah, a hurdle that would need to be overcome But then the second side of that is is well, is there anything in it for this person To be self or part of a self-organizing team? Do they have anything to gain? Do they see that they have anything to gain? I remember in the certainly in the early days of scrum people were worried about their marketability If I if I become a jack of all trades by expanding broadening my skill set rather than focusing on becoming the most Experienced and qualified person in my functional craft then I would Not not get a promotion. I wouldn't be able to become a more highly paid contractor and so on Whereas the market has changed for that now you're looking you know full stack employees are much more in demand right because they they they increase the agility of a team they increase the the the resilience of the team I remember I think I thought about this at the time. I think this came up during the the course There's I remember at Nokia. I think when I just joined at Nokia There was a big backlash to the management team rebranding and renaming everyone as engineers Okay, I said you no longer a tester or you no longer a developer. You're an engineer And whilst that to me that sounds like quite a sensible kind of You know equalizing of status and reducing status, but Yeah, unfortunately it upset quite a lot of people because they felt like their identity had been Wiped out And their achievements and their specialisms and their talent and their interests had been ignored largely Yeah Yeah, so I think you've got to have got to be careful with things as very seeming as innocuous as job titles Yeah, and and what it means, you know, there's a there's a lot of history with civilizations There's now something being done to people as well Yeah, if that comes out of the I've no idea whether that did come out of the blue, but Um, the more that something is done to somebody the greater the resistance there will be regardless Of of how inherently that good that change is for that that individual or that group Simply because it compromises their autonomy, but that that sense of identity You know that they that is a tribe that they've been part of for a long time It's it's a tribe they put a lot of value into I'm talking tribe here in the sense of Not the Spotify model as such but Um tribe as in a tribal identity groups that we're part of Yeah Common interests and common skills. Yeah Yeah, it's a tricky tricky political game really and you know people are We're all we're all funny weird people With our own preferences and attachments and things and if we believe something to be ours We want to hold on to it simply because it's ours Yeah, unless it can be replaced or traded for something that we believe to be better And if we can initiate that trade Rather than have the trade initiated upon us It's more like to be acceptable We're in um, I believe we're in week nine I've locked down is it really So I was thinking about this today because um Um We are and people are avid followers of the podcast will know this that we are approaching our 100th episode I know it's kind of a we've talked about meaning meaningless milestones before. Yes. Yes But the nervous 90s are almost upon us so I kind of we always said that We would do start. I think even last christmas you said to me We'll have to start thinking about what we're going to do for the 100th, you know, the 100th rivers And uh party I've just all I'm my fear is that we won't actually be in a pub for episode 100 So that would be I reckon when it could well happen it could well happen. Yeah 10 weeks I think I think we'll have we should have greater freedom in 10 weeks time Although one of my friends text on on one of my whatsapp groups for rugby. Um this today this evening I kind of a red alert message said uh, there's a there's a beer garden open in uh in winsley At the pub in winsley, which is just on the road for me And I kind of thought is that allowed yet? Firstly, is he telling the truth? Secondly, if he is telling the truth, surely that's not allowed yet It's a trap blackheader But the amount of kind of response that a message like that got on whatsapp because oh my god, there's a beer garden open. Oh my god um, so Well, you have you have my commitment that we will do something special for episode 100 I think it'd be nice to gather some ideas So perhaps people can tweet in with some suggestions about Because what we don't what I don't want to go as much as I love Chelten I don't want to go back to the first place we did episode one because that's a bit predictable and a bit Yeah, so it'd be nice to do something a bit different like Yeah, I wonder where it will be and what and um different kind of pub maybe or a different kind of Yeah drinking because it could well be in the middle of the summer or maybe the end of the summer We'll have to see what how time is go, but It's certainly going to be in the foot next Few months. Well, I reckon it'll probably be close to my birthday Ah, okay, and you still haven't had your launch party yet either. That's true That's true So, um, yeah, maybe we can tie something together a big bash Hmm When's this going to go out you think next week? Yeah, so if you're listening to this Yeah, if you're listening to this on Wednesday You should try and put them out on Wednesdays now Okay locked out Wednesdays So we'll have done our open space, which is this Friday. Yeah, so I would say I would advertise tickets, but People have probably already already probably already happened Yes, that's why that's why I was asking. Yeah, maybe we maybe we cut that bit That didn't work for you as listeners Oh, I did a I did a little video for our pubcast this week.  That was good Let's give a look at stats. It's quite staggering how much how much alcohol we've consumed in the and it's for over four years now I think we recently had our four-year anniversary Which was something that early may I think it was only a pint a week That's relatively Sensible between us half a pint a week That's something else Stephanie sustainable pace No, so have a look at see if you can search out our Our pubcast cartoon video Yeah, we had some we had some ideas for some some new features Did we for our listeners? Um for oh, yes for our patron listeners Um, so we'll see what what feedback that gets whether there's anybody's interested in some of those things being a guest on on the pubcast um Getting your questions personally answered each month for these kinds of things lock-ins have your own patron only Chat a little zoom call just for us So these kinds of ideas see what people think Um, okay. All right.  I think I might go out and side and enjoy the rest of the sunshine Sounds like a good idea All right, well, um, take care me Yes, and yourself and look after yourself everybody Cheers everybody