Thanks, Ross. All right, so welcome to our what was supposed to be lunch and learn, but now which is because of my miscalculation of timing. And I'll, oh, Ross, can you send Toby the link, please? It's going to be my, I guess, basically a tour of some of the resources that I am aware of and that I have been going to in terms of core vocabulary. And also, I'm hoping that if any of you have some resources that I haven't been able to or that I haven't highlighted that we'll have some time at the end to do that. So off we go, there's lots to cover. So I'm going to try and move pretty quickly here. Come on, computer, there. All right, so a little bit of a review. I'm sure this is not new to folks online today, but I thought if we're going to talk about core vocabulary, we should just review a little bit about what we're saying. So in our everyday speaking, most of what we say is communicated with really a relatively few number of words. So about 200 depends on which research you go to and how many words are core, but it's consistently across the research that it's somewhere in the area of about 200 words makes up about 85% of what we say. And this core is vocabulary, is language, are words that we use across all kinds of different contexts and places and topics. So it's words that we use throughout the day in a variety of different ways. Again, a little bit, a small set of words that we are used frequently across contexts. And rather than in the past, and certainly I have done this myself, building communication displays that are primarily nouns, we are really trying to highlight various parts of speech. And as you'll see, the core vocabulary words that I will share with you today are really heavy in verbs and adjectives, adverbs. Words that can be, I almost would call them power words if I was going to use a different language, but I'm not going to do that because we want to get our language clear. So we're talking about various parts of speech. OK, come on. Sometimes it works. Some examples of core words, and we're going to go to all of these today, the Gail Van Tatenhove's Pixon Project. So really, I would say that the whole idea about core vocabulary began with the Minspeak language sets, which have now become Unity. And so you can see that they're very heavy in core vocabulary. Today, just about every product has a core vocabulary focus because in the world of AAC, it's become understood that this is a very strong way to organize our vocabularies and to introduce vocabularies. And then here at the bottom is the one from Project Core. All right, this is one that many people are probably familiar with because many of you have seen Karen Erickson's work. We've talked about it before. This is her 40 core words. And from the Dynamic Learning Maps website, as you'll see when we go to Project Core, Karen has reduced this a little bit. The way that she came up, or the way that they came up with these original 40, is to look at a whole bunch of different core vocabulary lists and find the ones that would be most valuable in educational settings. So these are a great set of words. But if you're thinking about core vocabulary for preschoolers or other contexts, you might want to start from this list, but not be absolutely married to it because, and actually, as we all see, they modified it a bit, based on some further research. This I'm borrowing from Toby Scott. Thank you, Toby, who borrowed it from Maureen Nevers, which is the idea of looking at how flexible the core vocabulary words is. So with one word, example here, the word different, you can use that word in all kinds of different contexts and all kinds of different ways. So instead, I want a different book. I'm commenting on a picture. Your picture is different. It's different from mine. Your drawing is different from mine. You can use it in math concepts. Ben's number is different from that. The difference is he's acting differently. So we can take that one word and have lots and lots and lots of opportunities to use it. Again, as Karen Erickson would say and as Linda Burkhart would say and Carol Muffwhite would say, there's Toby, hello Toby, that we need repetition. Kids need lots of chances to learn these things with variety. So they need it over and over and over again using core vocabulary gives us lots of chances to do this. Another example, again, thanks to Toby, using the word turn. It's one of my favorite words. And I have to say, I'm one of the core sets that I'm gonna show you. It doesn't have the word turn and it drives me bananas. So I would be adding that. So if we're thinking about using that one word across the day, turn the page, your turn, my turn, I wanna turn, oh, let's turn the channel.  We're gonna turn the corner when you're going to the gym. You turn the corner, I'm gonna turn away from you if you keep acting silly, I don't know, whatever. So you can see that there's lots and lots of ways and those are a couple of examples. I'm gonna, as always, start my tour of the core vocabulary with, to my mind, the site that is the one go to and I hope everybody knows it about Practical AAC. If you don't follow me and off we go to see Practical AAC, this is the wonderful Carol Zangari. And so when we go to the homepage, number one, you're gonna wanna see what she's got some wonderful posts always this week, but I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna just do a search for core vocabulary. And you can see the 316 searches. So she typically does things that are a year of resources for core vocabulary. So if we click on that post, we go back to it, which is from December, she's got all kinds of marvelous links here, some of which I will go to today, but not all. So you might want to bookmark this. Lovely ideas of how we can think about using the different words and highlighting the different words. So Practical AAC is a wonderful resource to make sure that you go to and Carol's got millions of things about core vocabulary here. So that was the one from November. She has another core vocabulary from September at the beginning of the year and you can go back to other past years as well. So I highly recommend that you explore that further. I'm not gonna go through all of those today because it's sort of a theoretically at least a lunch and learn session. I'm just going to point you at some of these things and walk you through so that hopefully when you go back you can remember, oh yeah, that's the place that I would want to go and look at that. Now the next one is the Project Core Site. And again, this is from the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies at Chapel Hill and I'm gonna actually put the link in there which is really silly. So I'm gonna go Project Core and I will send out this website or the website. I'll send out the PowerPoint to everyone as well we are recording this. So if you wanna go back to these sites you'll have them and I'll put this link in the PowerPoint. So Project Core is basically a research project. One of the ones from the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies. And what they are doing is taking from that initial universal core which Karen and Lori Geist who's also working on this talks about as these are the main core words that you need to have. And then they're trying to figure out what are the sort of the next targeted core vocabulary and what are the more specific vocabulary items that kids might need. But I'm gonna walk you through some of the stuff that they have here. So for example, they have for you to print out and anyone who's heard me speak at Lunch and Learns and also the session that I did for the vision folks on the tactile symbols has seen this site before but I'm gonna go through it one more time again. So they have, Karen has put here and her people the 36 Universal Core Communication Board. Now already you're gonna notice that we had talked about Karen Erickson having a 40 location core board or 40 core words based on her work in classrooms. They reduced the numbers being the ones that teachers really use made a couple of changes which I honestly don't remember right now and then left some, I guess real estate on the side so that people can put in other core words that they might want to use or alternatively put in markers to go to other pages that might be printed. So that's how that's changed a little bit. When you go down here, what you can see is they have put variety of different ways for you to access that 36 personal core. So the 36 uses looks just like that board there but I'm gonna go to the Adobe Personal Use High Contrast in Adobe. I'm sure that you guys all know and yeah from Lori is a print ready. So you can go there and get a high contrast core vocabulary board for kids that might have CVI or that might have other things available as well. Oh and Diane, I see that you've asked is it available on BoardMaker Online? You can download these core vocabulary links to BoardMaker version six or BoardMaker Studio and they will all upload into BoardMaker Online. I have done that myself because I was playing with it. So yes, the answer is that you can, you download the file and it's a BoardMaker file but you can import it into BoardMaker Online. So that's a really good question. Thank you for asking Diane. Yeah, you can do that for sure. Then what they have are a variety of other ways that the book, the 40 core might be organized for kids who have different either visual needs or access needs so that they need to have fewer symbols on a page. Now, this doesn't mean that you only give four symbols at a time. This just means that these are different organizations depending on how kids may need to navigate the access to those symbols. So again, you can download these. So these particular, if we go here again, I'm gonna stick with the high contrast, the Adobe one. And I'm gonna, what they've done is they've got all of the 36 words still, oh, it's slow, and they've created it in high contrast. So if I didn't have BoardMaker or another software program to help me make these, they've made them available. So their idea is to get people to have access to resources when they may not have the tools, all the tools that we typically think about having to make communication boards. A partner-assisted communication book. So when you're doing partner-assisted scanning, same thing, a poster for a classroom poster, which I think is marvelous. So it's 24 by 28, but they don't have that in high contrast, but you could blow up the other one, but this classroom poster is something that I know I've built a few of, and this is a real gift to have, but presented that way. And then they have some ideas for how you would actually make the poster. So you've got pull-offs, and I'll talk a little bit about that in a while. And then finally, the tactual symbols that I talked about with the tactual symbol workshop. You'll notice again, there's only 13 of the 36 universal core words there, but I know that they're working on creating a more robust set of the tactuals as well. I'll say at this time, we're also looking to do a follow-up webinar on the tactuals because I know lots of people are interested and people are asking regularly, so how do I do this? So we'll be talking about an implementation process more deeply for that. So that's sort of a little bit of an aside. So that's part of what's on Project Core. Other things on Project Core, and again, I'm gonna have to do this really quickly because we're, holy smokes, are some really wonderful professional development modules. So you can look at the core vocabulary universal solution, you can click on that.  So it's really a scripted professional learning opportunity. Each one of these are. Don't have time to stick with all of these today, but I really do want you to recognize what, this is a really good one, Teaching and Modeling University, well, they're all good, but I really do want you to recognize the amazing resource that is being developed on Project Core very much. And every time I go here, there's something, predictable chart writing, emphasizing core vocabulary, all kinds of things that you can embed into your classroom and into your teaching across. So they're really trying to link what they had on the dynamic learning maps and really focus on how they use core vocabulary in a variety of ways. So bookmark the site or I'll certainly send you the PowerPoint, you'll have it. Okay, so that's Project Core, lots of resources there. Yeah, all right, so I'm going to go back out to the PowerPoint. The next place that I wanted to, and again, we have been here before, if you've been on these sites or on some of these Web and Learn opportunities last year, is the communication series that is on the Angelman syndrome, oh shoot, on the Angelman Syndrome Foundation. I'll have to do this. I'll check that link before I send out the PowerPoint. Angelman's syndrome site, or angelman.org in the States, has a communication training series that is mostly put together by Carolyn Musselwhite and Aaron Sheldon, but the other people are, I think Maureen is involved as well. So if I go to communication training series, the reason that I'm talking about this now is that they have some nice videos that talk about how, come on, come on, come on, come on. Oh, see, there we go, sorry. That was my link we're supposed to have taken in the first place. So they have some videos on ways to introduce core vocabulary. Now, this isn't to say that you're only gonna give those four words at one time. What they're doing in these webinars are talking about ways to use those words across the day in educational environments and talking with kids and modeling and teaching. So again, nice ideas. These are particularly, these core vocabulary webinars are particularly linked to the Karen Erikson's work, but you could take the ideas from this and use them with any kind of introduction of core vocabulary in a variety of different settings. So each one of these webinars is about an hour long. So there's tons of resources here too, but take a look at one or two and see what you think. All of this that I'm gonna share with you today, it's gonna be sort of a plethora of different resources. And I know sometimes it can be like, poof, too overwhelming. So all I'm hoping to do is let you know what they are today and that you can go back again, perhaps it's some of the things that you wanna look at, or alternatively, and I'll throw this out. If there's a site that you wanna have a guided tour of, we can do that as a lunch and learn as well. So if you wanna go deeper on any one of these sites. All right, so core vocabulary 101 in the communication series in the Angelman Foundation, Angelman Syndrome Foundation. All right, geez, I keep saying all right. I know that I'm gonna hate listening to this. The next place that I'd like to take us to is the Core Word classroom from AssistiveWare. Now they're gonna ask you when you first go there to sign up and get a login. So it's free, you don't have to pay anything to get in, but you do have to register and get a login. So what I'm showing you right now is myself logged in. Okay, and so they have, again, a variety of different resources. One of them being their core vocabulary board. Boards, which are for any of you who, any of you, where are they? Okay, so the letter size core vocabulary in English, Spanish, and guess what, French. So those of you who are in environments where French is the language that the kids are learning and using, they have French versions as well. So I'm going to go to the USUK front board. These are the boards that I actually took around this summer when we were doing the summer institutes. And so lots of you have seen this. And that's how I made those boards to go to the summer institutes. I downloaded this and then there's a backside to it and I sent them to a printer and got them laminated. So again, you can see that there's many more words here. And they have at the bottom on the, on the assistive wear site, the links to what would be fringe words or more expanding with categories. And I like this board a lot. I think there's some really good uses of the word are lots of good words here. Some words that are perhaps a little bit more powerful than the 36 that are on project core universals. But this board doesn't have turn, which I said drives me bananas. So I think what I would do is probably change the A or something, the off and put it into a turn word. Although it would have to be pink because that's the verb coding here. And Karen or the project core universal words does not have any color coding support. You'll see that this one does have color coding and we're gonna talk about the Fitzgerald keys color coding for just a minute, which is more standard. This one has sort of gone off. Usually verbs are green and these prepositions and adverbs and things would be are actually, adjectives are blue would be, is that right? I have to remember now. Can't remember what adjectives would be. But anyway, these would typically be orange. This has a different color coding system. I'm not sure why they chose to do it differently. The other thing that you'll notice about this core vocabulary set is that it's not in PCS or it's not made with BoardMaker. It's made with the symbol sticks because it comes from a system where ProLigo to Go company and they use symbol sticks in their system. So while you may choose to use this, I would be really cautious about not mixing up this core board with other core boards with kids that are using PCS symbols. But what I have done, and you'll see an example at the end of our hour together, is I've taken the words that are on this and used them to build a little bit more robust core vocabulary board in BoardMaker.  For those of you whose kids might be using ProLigo to Go, this is the perfect low tech core backup board because it's gonna be in the same simple set as those. So I'm hoping that this is, I know we're going fast to this. I'm hoping this is making sense to you. And if not, there's always, you can always put questions in the chat or send me questions afterwards. So there's other wonderful resources in the assistive where core vocabulary classroom. So they have core word planners.  How are you gonna build them into Livestream Life Skills? So lots of ideas here that they've posted for you.  I'm not, morning circle is not my favorite thing. Let's go into sharing books, core word planner. And I will go to videos and they have a PDF. So there's lots of resources here. They take you through it, they talk about them. They give you a modeling guide, really, really good resources here for you to take a look at. And you can start, you know what I would say is play with it, start thinking about it. And then they also have a planner or sorry, a template so that you can go ahead and start thinking about how you're going to be intentional about focusing on core vocabulary, modeling core vocabulary and teaching core vocabulary across your particular classroom experience or what, and for parents across the day. Lots of wonderful resources here. I'll maybe take you to one more thing on this page before we move around. So strategies and resources. Again, most of these things have a, yeah. So a little bit, if we go here, they have some lovely examples of modeling and how to do modeling, some videos on modeling. Really, this is just becoming more and more robust every time I come back to look at it. So if you're, and the thing is, yes, if you're using the assistiveware core board and ProLigo, it works, but it doesn't matter because almost, well, every system, even thinking pod, the core vocabulary are in those sets. So these are just some really good ideas of hitting and modeling and using and talking with and talking about those words that are so important across so many contexts with our kids. Okay, so I'll walk you through a couple more. So there's lots and lots of really good resources here, and I know that they are adding things all the time. So there you go, you can say, if you've gone there, oh, so look at this, they've got a monopoly, snakes and ladders, yeah, wonderful resources and tools here that you can, or ideas. Even if you don't take their particular tool, you've got some wonderful ideas that you can start to build some of your own stuff with. We're about halfway through and we're about halfway there. Okay, so the next site that I want to take you to is not exactly a low tech system, although I was talking to Julie, heard here, I'm not sure how to say Julie's last name, the Toby Dynabox rep about this, and she says they're likely going to have boards available for, or they're working on boards for printout of the core. When I was, their core, which is the core first page set. So this is that, oops, sorry, this is a page set that goes with, or that can be loaded into the Toby Dynabox compass and I think communicator software. And again, focusing on the, you'll see across all of these core vocabulary sets, many of the words are overlapping because they're the power core words. At Isaac this summer, Toby Dynabox was handing out some beautiful paper core first displays. I have a couple of really large ones and a few smaller sort of eight and a half by 11 like the assistive ware pages. And I asked Julie if there was a place to get them and she says, no, not yet, but they're working on it. So I'm hoping that that will come soon. In the meantime, what you could do is just print off this page and, you know, laminate it and do the rest of what you're doing and you'd have a low tech backup if your student is working on the Toby Dynabox core first page set or to give them a, again, a low tech system to start focusing on core vocabulary. What you'll see here is this is very, they'd use the Fitzgerald keys and the order so they start with the order that words usually happen in and have colored them according to the more traditional AAC colors. So pronouns are yellow, verbs are green and adjectives and prepositions are orange. So I'm thinking I should have a, I'm hoping I'm getting all of those things right. I actually was trained in linguistics but man, if you don't talk about that it doesn't stick with your, in your head. Anyway, so let's talk about what they have here. They have resources, so little videos, recordings. Start this one for a little minute. I won't let the next few minutes, we're not gonna watch this, but I do want you to know again that they are talking about organizing or organizing around core vocabulary and they have some nice resources here on implementation on this site and so corporates, photo albums, profiles, all of these would be focusing on their software but again, some good ideas for how we can think about using and modeling core vocabulary from the Toby Dynavox version as well or Toby Dynavox site. Then next is the PicsOn project I'm gonna pause for a minute and have a drink cause I'm getting, my throat is getting dry and I'm gonna ask a question. Has anyone heard of the PicsOn project or has anyone used the PicsOn project kit? Toby, yep, anyone else? Okay, so this is new. So PicsOn, I guess the best way to do this is just to take you to the site. I'm gonna close this one off so we don't have 17 million things open at the same time. PicsOn is essentially a low tech version of MinSpeak and firstly, when they talk about the PicsOn project and they wanna sell you the kits here, so okay, that's good, you might want to get the kit. It tells some examples of the boards and different ideas for starting to basically teach MinSpeak using this low tech system. But, so that's good, but this site, I think you're gonna find more useful if you're in, number one, if you're in the MinSpeak world, yes, but also even to think about core vocabulary, no matter what kind of language that you are using. So they have here for you to download if you are so desirous, a 50 location core board as a board maker file or as a PDF file, and then this PicsOn wall chart for textbooks. I'm not gonna talk about that right now, but I'm thinking that maybe we'll do a lunch and learn on moving from packs to a more robust language system. And that would be one of the things that this is for. There's a more particular program that another Megan, can't remember her last name, SLP has developed around that and I'm gonna take you to that before we leave today. But, so again, you can get the 50 location PicsOn boards as a PDF and print them out much the way you could get them from Project Core. They have, again, really great, or a variety of teaching materials. So if you're thinking about doing some teaching around core vocabulary and PicsOn, here's an example of one of their... A dog for each. Sorry, it should be moving forward. There we go.  Monday. Oh, and this is a little PowerPoint activity that you can actually do and you'll be teaching some of the words in the project. I won't take you to all of that. So again, lots of good resources here. Now the last one that I'm going to take you to around PicsOn and Minspeak is Gail Vantaitenhof, right? And it's those of you who haven't heard of or don't know Gail Vantaitenhof, she, I just think she's absolutely brilliant and she's the one that I think has done the most wonderful work in focusing on teaching core vocabulary. Gail was also intimately involved, if not the lead, I think probably, in the PicsOn project. So I have this core vocabulary classroom kit for $75 CD and it's well worth the $75 I think. Again, no matter whether you're using the Unity core vocabulary or any core vocabulary, because it gives you a bunch of different resources to go from and you can, once you think about core in one set, it's easy to think about core in another set. I'll maybe just let, this is just a short two minute. The last one is the line from the joli version. If you're supporting the students using any other vocabulary program, let's start by looking at what's in the core vocabulary classroom kit.   It's not a very long little video, But the other thing that I would highly recommend, if you want to get more ideas for core vocabulary, is to go to Gail Ventatinhove's website and her YouTube channel, because she's just got lovely, lovely examples of how she does this. It's my hope that we might get her to come at some point, although I know she doesn't travel very much anymore. So we'll have to see whether that's possible. But again, another really good site. And if you're interested in going deeper with this upon looking at some of Gail's work, she'll send you that CD. And it seems kind of archaic now to send the CD to you. And it doesn't take very long to get it. It's really a good resource. So OK. La, la, la. Where are we at? Time-wise. All right, we're doing OK. So I'm going to maybe come back to this. I'm going to go back. Because this kind of follows nicely on what Gail was talking about. This is something that I have been working on, which is taking kind of the project core, core board, and adding a few more words, some juicy words, and making some mistakes. Maybe put it on my Facebook page. If anyone can see what mistakes I made in making this, you can send me a little note, because there's a few, which really make me cranky, because this took a long time. But again, we can pull them off, put them back on, use them, highlight them, talk about them. And that idea came from Gail. But it also came from this other person. Megan, something or other, who has done an intentional movement from, oops, why is this not working properly? OK, excuse me. I'm going to copy and paste this. So she's had lots of kids who were using, as maybe many of you do, who were used to using a Pax-based system. And what she has done is build out, and it's coming, it's coming, it's coming, it's slow, slow, slow. What she calls, and it's trademarked, the core vocabulary exchange system. So this whole link will talk a lot about lots of different things. But what I wanted to just, and I, again, download this, look at it. It'll be in the link there. Really good resources on snug, a bunch of things beyond core. But, and I'm making you dizzy doing this. So this is essentially what she's started to do, which is to have the core board here in the middle, as you can see, and then the fringe vocabulary there, and in a Pax-like system. So kids who are used to building requests in their, for Pax, on a strip and handing it over or building things on a strip and exchanging it. Now, we can, now that we are thinking more about the focus on core vocabulary, we can start to do that in a giving, keeping them, keeping them with the familiar system that they might have been using, but now focusing more on the core vocabulary piece of that system rather than on strictly being, so, and having many more functions because of the language of the core vocabulary than just making requests. So I really think this is quite brilliant. It's something that she is going to probably be selling based on what I can see. And her, well, not only based on what I can see, based on what I know from going to her website. So if we go to the SLP, SL Pathways, which is Megan's site, our team, I'm gonna give her name there. Megan Brazos is the person that sort of is leading this. And what they have here, if any of you are interested in the core vocabulary exchange system, I don't know how much money it's gonna cost. I don't know, but they are in field testing of their products, which is great. I'm glad they're field testing their products. And it looks like they're gonna be available before two very long. So another way, another resource for us to think about how we can use core vocabulary and how to bring kids into a system that is more robust and that has the power of core vocabulary while honoring the learning that they've done in a PECS kind of system. And again, that's kind of what I was, Kathy's PECS core trial. That was kind of what I was trying to do here is helping a teacher who's, where the child had been using a PECS-ish kind of system. And she felt that this would be more familiar. So I built this out. And then this was some posts that I made while I was doing it. I want to do more. So we'd never start with a sentence that long, but I was suggesting to her when they're going through their day, if they're gonna go to the gym, you might say, pull off the strip and say, go. Or, and the word that I'm probably gonna put on there is we go or you go to the gym or if we want more of it, you could put more. And when he's talking about his lunch, more of it or more of the same or not saying want different. Couple, you can do lots of different things here. And number one, it focuses the child's attention on those words. And the second thing is it sort of mimics, I suppose, in a way what a communication device would do in a low-tech way. I am making more of these and I hope I'll get my language set better. So I'll promise to share. And I'm also gonna be tracking how it's working with this young man. The other thing that I think that this pull-off strip or pull-off vocabulary can do, especially for kids on the spectrum, is that you can take it off and sort of, if they're not looking at what you're modeling, you can take it off, put it in their eyes in their field of view and take it back. So it might be helpful. As I said, this is very much a trial. Megan's system will be much more of a robust system, but I think it's, I'm interested and intrigued by the idea of it. So all right, so there we went to a lot of resources on core vocabulary. Have I missed anyone? Time for you guys to, or is there any questions or anything that you want to chime in with? Mostly have I missed some things that you guys know about? I'm gonna pause for a minute to, my voice is getting sore. I see nothing in the chat. One just popped up in the chat, Kathy. I'm not sure if it was just to be or to be. Okay, I see, I might have missed it. How can we see? I might have missed it, I might have missed it. Okay, so here you guys, this is becoming for me the most important thing that we need to do, which is go back to the basics and talk about how do we make decisions around systems, around using a feature match system, our feature match process, using the set framework, using some kind of framework to guide our decisions around choosing. So based on your question, based on lots of the things that I'm hearing and seeing out in the world, I'm thinking that we need to do a session or two around that decision making, feature matching that to sort of some of the basic ideas of what we need to do with AAC as well as assistive technology. Does that sound, and that's way too big of a question for me to answer right now, Lillian, but if that's a topic that people would be interested in either myself or myself with other folks, I think it's needed in the world. So I don't know other people's thoughts around that. Do we need to do some focused work on feature matching AAC selection, those kinds of things? It seems to be that question. Yeah, lots of yeses popping up. Okay, yeah, all right. On the list, coming to something near you in the new year, that will be high on the list of things to add. And it's funny, I've been talking with a variety of people about that. So yeah, we'll make sure that that happens very soon. And it might be a series actually. So Toby, is your hand really up? Yeah, I was just gonna ask the same thing. Nope. That's a given, there you go. Not really up. Not really up. Okay, thank you. Anyone else have any other questions? I absolutely, we will talk about decision making and feature matching important.  Just a bunch of stuff. I think the important thing for today's lesson, I hope today's lesson, oh my goodness, from this is that all the systems are moving to thinking about core vocabulary and that if you have nothing, think about giving kids access to a core vocabulary. The other thing is don't feel that you have to be totally locked exactly to any particular core vocabulary system. I still think part of it is saying what words really do we need in this context? So, but now that you've had access to lots of different ways to look at core vocabulary, perhaps that can help you in your decision making around which words you want to build on your own boards, et cetera. Okay, I see no more questions and I'm seeing more coming to the end. So, that's it for today and there's a plethora of resources out there. I hope this has been helpful and I hope that you'll go back and look at more and as I said, I'll make sure that this PowerPoint gets out to everybody and this session is being recorded so we will have it available. Can't exactly say when, sorry. We don't have a bunch of control over that but the fact that we have got it archived now will mean that we can make it available to you all. I don't want to end this. It's probably going to be after Christmas unfortunately just because of some of the shutdown stuff. Yeah, after Christmas I'm sure. So, and with that in mind, after Christmas, January is a big month. Oh, Toby, I didn't put this in. Sorry, I just talked to Toby about this before. So, we've got a bunch of things happening in January. I'll talk about the regular PLC. So, January 12th from four to five, Kelly Fauner will be doing what she was going to do today, environmental communication training part two. Now, no one has taken her up on the opportunity to work with her. So, she's going to change up part two a little bit, kind of review some of the things and give you again an opportunity to jump on with her if that's something that you have now thinking that you have the chance, opportunity, whatever to do. So, that will be, yeah, the Thursday. That probably for most people, the first Thursday back, you'll get a web link and this will be sent out. Then to remind you that January 19th, Jennifer Kent Walsh is going to talk about her research and communication partners. I'll be sending out a article in the new year, sort of a meta analysis that Jennifer was involved in. And I know some people not mentioning any names, Toby have particularly asked me for that article, but I'm going to send it out to everybody to give you a little bit of pre-reading before Jennifer's session. It is, that will not be recorded. The January 19th, Jennifer has declined to ask us not to record and post that. So, if you can figure out a way to get there, please do. It will be well worth your time. And then there will be a lunch and learn.  There will be a lunch and learn on January 10th and Toby's going to do that. Toby, do you want to tell us a little bit about what we can expect for the lunch and learn on January 10th, please? Sure, can everybody hear me? Yeah. Okay. My partner in assistive technology, Lindsey Balanson, I last year developed or started working on a Weebly or a website about switch access. And we kind of let it fall off the wagon because once we started digging into it, we realized, well, you know what, there's actually a lot more to this than we can, then we have time to actually put together. And then this year, the OTs asked if I would present something for them. And everybody who knows me knows how much I love presenting. So I finished the Weebly and it became an introduction to thinking about switches using the set process and then how it works. So I set up six different stations and we all kind of went around and looked at speech output switches and we looked at interfaces that would allow switch access to computer. We looked at different kinds of mouse emulators. We looked at iPads and switches. And Ross, I have to give you a big shout out. Ross was my teacher. He would just give me stuff and show me how it was meant to be. So part of this Weebly is looking at how those things work and it's a list of resources. Kind of one-stop shopping is what I was trying to do where you can look at the why's and the how's and the setup. And then part two will be how switches and switch access can provide curricular access and we'll do some specific work around learning matrix, breaking down the different subject areas where switch work fits in and why and for who. So lovely. Yeah, we're looking. So I'm just gonna say I was told about this by folks at the Glen Rose saying, ooh, it was really good. So kudos to, I wasn't there. So I thought, okay, hearing ready reviews, we're gonna invite her. So thank you. I think that's going to be quite marvelous and that will be in January the 10th. So mark your calendars and we will be sending out more information about all of that. So awesome. Thank you, Toby. Does anyone else have any updates or sharing or anything that you want to do before we close up tonight?  I think we're gonna have to find some assistive technology or some language support. So anyway, we, Ross and I wish you a Merry Christmas and I was gonna put all the other things that we could wish but I just really liked this. So we hope you have a marvelous holiday and lots of wonderful things and lots of rest and relaxation because I clearly know how hard you guys are all working to provide voices whether it would be low tech, high tech communication partner voices for these children who are some of our most vulnerable. So I really hope that you have a lovely holiday time, spend it relaxing, enjoying, being family, all of that good stuff. And we will see you next year. So good night, everyone. I hope this was a useful for you. Please go back and look at some of these sites and maybe don't start going everywhere. Just pick one, just pick one and start exploring. And everyone has lots of things that can learn and that can be used across all kinds of various systems. So thank you so much with that. I will say good night.


All right, so a lot of people over the years have asked me to teach a class about email marketing. Well, I've always felt it to be so simple that I didn't know how to teach a class about it. And so I'm just going to share with you as much of my strategies here on this video as I can because I think it really is as simple as do not annoy your email subscribers. And when you begin the relationship with your email subscribers, do not make them merely tolerate you, but make your content sought after that they actually want to subscribe. And why am I saying this? Because most email marketing strategy, the grow your email list will teach you to use a lead magnet. What's a lead magnet? What does that even mean? A lead magnet is a magnet to attract leads. What is a lead? It's another human soul who might actually be interested, not just might be but are interested in your message or your work and might become a potential client for you. Why are we calling them a lead? And this comes out of mainstream marketing frameworks, which is comes out of corporate marketing, where they are analyzing huge amounts of data and they're approaching, you know, they're, they're looking at the market as a whole and it's very disassociated from how you and my dear solopreneur wants to form a connection with our ideal viewer, ideal client. I'm calling them a lead. I don't call any of you leads. You see what I mean, like already, when you start learning mainstream marketing, you're already getting disassociated from the actual business that you want to relate to other human beings in your business, which is from a sense of soul to soul connection from a sense of heart of service. So again, you're going to learn and other how to grow your email list. Use a lead magnet. Okay, I've told you what a lead is. It's someone who might become a potential client but a magnet.  No, a magnet is to attract, you know, an inanimate metal object. Right. So it's this idea and you'll see sometimes in marketing graphics a little magnet.  I mean, I get what they're trying to do but it's just, it also suggests that the lead, you know, being attracted to the magnet has no sovereignty.  I've considered it and I'm going to follow you because out of my sense of desire for connection, no, it's just if there's no, there's no empowerment. It is a control over rather than an empowering of somebody. Do you see where this is going? A lead magnet? Okay, what is a lead magnet? What do they mean? I can usually teach you to create some kind of video series or some kind of quiz or some kind of PDF, you know, resource, and someone's supposed to go to your website and there's a pop up perhaps or not a pop up either way it's like, oh, get this very special thing by putting in your email address. And then in small print. And yes, you'll keep on getting my emails, my marketing emails as well after that. What is the relationship, how is the relationship starting? It's starting with subtle deception. And it's also starting from the person, you know, salivating over your free gift so called and go, well, I got to put my email address and this things look so good. Without the intentionality that I'm looking forward to this person's ongoing emails. I do it differently. And I'm going to show you on screen how I do it. But first let me explain the results of how, you know, since I changed my strategy. I used to use a lead magnet of a free webinar. It's one of the most sophisticated forms of a lead magnet because a free webinar means they're not just downloading something that they're probably never going to open. But do you think people are opening the thing they download from you? Seriously, how many of them do you have no idea because you can't track it first of all, usually. But, and even if they open it are they really setting an intention to can to engage with it. Most don't. Most don't. So a web a free webinar is much more sophisticated because they actually show up or they, they are, they're probably intending to show up to a thing anyway. So a free webinar as a lead magnet. I built up an email list of over 10,000 subscribers so I know what I'm talking about. This is already back in 2011 I got to 2011 2012 I got to 10,000 maybe even earlier, I got to 10,000 subscribers using a free webinar. And guess what, my email open rates. So the rate at which my subscribers opened my ongoing emails was lower than industry average. Let me just first explain how many people should you expect to open your emails when you send it out to an average 100 subscribers of yours, or average 1000 subscribers of yours. Well, given the current research, it's about 22%. So you send it to 1000 people you expect about 220 to open it send it to 100 people you expect about 22 people now the smaller your email list to hire the open rate so some of you are like George I've got a 50% email open rate 40% Well how big is your email list it's a several hundred people that's not big at all. Of course if you have under 1000 people. You know you can expect to hire 40% open rate but once you get past 2000 3000, you know or somewhere around that range even over 1000. The email rates go down to 20 to 30% and then larger ones, you know usually around 20% or so, sometimes lower. Having built an email list of 10,000 plus with a free webinar, my email open rates were between, I don't know 12 to 17% at that point. It's really low it's lower than it's about it's just about how sometimes half of the average. Well, guess what about 2015 or so I switched my strategy from building a larger email list with free webinars. Or any other gift and simply saying, listen you can join my email newsletter to get my ongoing best emails or best best content, or not join. It's up to you you can follow me on social media, or to make sure you don't miss the best of my content you can join this email newsletter in other words, I started looking at the email newsletter as a service of convenience to my audience. Not as a gotcha. Now I can market to you. Of course I still include offers in my emails at the bottom of my emails. Notice this, whenever you get one of my content newsletters. I give you what you came for first before then at the bottom. I'm not afraid fear is one of the reasons why so many people go into mainstream marketing. I'm trying to say you know what marketing and business itself is not just about growing a business and making more money. It's a practice. I believe actually it's a stage for spiritual development. I know that sounds highfalutin, but yeah, like I said fear versus love versus how do I apply love and connection to my marketing strategies and that's not how you look at what what you're learning out there is more most of it's based on fear and control. So I'm saying, well, I don't want to force them to join my email newsletter by dangling this salivating carrot, or the carrot that they'll salivate or whatever. You know, no, I want them to join my email newsletter because they want to receive my ongoing emails. Okay, so I switched my strategy in 2015. I started to not have it and that had not have a freebie. There's no lead magnet. It's simply, you want to join my email newsletter to get my best emails. If you do, go ahead and, and it's, and let me show you my screen for what my, my website looks like. Okay, for joining an email newsletter. Oops, I'll share this with you later. Let me go ahead and share with you. My, my, my homepage. There it is. Okay, yeah, that that's my homepage, right. Okay, so notice there's no pop up. There's no pop up interrupting you because again, how are you starting the relationship with your email subscriber. Are you going to annoy them with the pop up, because you might say oh it's not annoying. Yes, yeah it is.  Okay, there's no pop up number one and number two.  Usually they put the opt-in box above the fold, but even if you scroll down I have no opt-in box even below the fold what's an opt-in box it's where you'd like type in an email, maybe your first name to get their freebie or join your email newsletter. No. Instead, people simply know, oh, I want to join George. It's either up here newsletter, or it's at the bottom of the screen newsletter, you can choose either one. And at the top of the screen if you click here, you can actually look at the archive, recent archives. Okay, so you can see the recent newsletters and you can fully read them without signing up. Okay, because I actually put this on my LinkedIn profile. Anyway, this is my full email newsletter. Okay. It's as simple as this. Actually, it's interesting. It's interesting. It's actually, since I'm not signed into LinkedIn, notice I'm incognito. I'm not signed into LinkedIn. They don't show the full thing. I never realized because I've always signed into LinkedIn. But at least you get enough of it. Let me see another one. Okay. Yeah, this is the full thing actually. Yeah, this is the full thing. So the full newsletters are available the last three. You know, that's plenty. That's three months. And then if you want more, you sign up for it. And now let me show you what the signup page looks like. Okay. The signup page is almost purposefully challenging the potential subscriber to say, I'm not going to dangle you any carrot.  No, I don't, I don't, I'm not going to do any of that. I want you to sign up because you actually want to sign up that you may you heard about me or you read my stuff on social media. You watch my videos, whatever, but you were like, No, I don't want to miss George's best. I want to sign up. You see how non and not only is it not not that attractive. Okay. It's, it's minimalistic. It's simple. But it asks you for more than you typically would expect for an email newsletter. I asked you for your full name, not just your first name because people, people usually when they when they send you an email Now, hello, Susan, like as if they were again deception as if they were emailing you personally some kind of love note or something like ridiculous. No, I when I send you an email newsletter notice I do not address you at all. I said I start my email newsletter simply saying my best post of the month. There's no dear Susan, dear John, nothing or hey Susan like as if I was sent no, I want you to know I'm sending this to you and about 5000 other people. This is not personal. George this is this is terrible. I mean, yeah, I'm being very honest with you.  My email open rates are now more than 50%. Let me show you that first. So my email open rates are now more than double industry average. Let me go ahead and show you proof on on on screen here. Let me find my correct screen to share with you. There it is. Okay. So this is I'm opening the kimono as they say and revealing the numbers to you. Okay, so these are my my email newsletters going my monthly email newsletters going back to April, March, etc. And I have just north of 5000 email subscribers which is not small. It's not huge, but it's not small. And by this point by several thousand in, I should be an industry average of open rates of 22% or so. Look at my look at my open rates, 56%, 52%, 53, 54, 58, 54. Okay, my click rates are also higher than average. I think average click rates are. Last I checked was two to 3%, something like that. So, you know, higher higher than average. And so, but people are certainly opening it. And my, my newsletter subject lines are not salivating and charming and persuasive. No, it's very, very, very boring. You might even say 2023 September, should you charge what you were 2023 August a not for fame but it's boring. But yet I still have such a high open rate. Why, because I start. So I should tell you well George didn't you say you have 10,000 subscribers what happened to it. Back in 2015, I removed 90% of my email subscribers what. Yes, I did. Why. Because I realized I have built an email newsletter of mostly people who just wanted my free webinar and not ongoing connection with me there. They're not bad people it's just the way I started that relationship. Join my free webinar. And by the way, you're going to keep getting marketing emails from me. It's not a good way to start the relationship, even if it's content emails I don't care. You know, you start over connection with somebody by deception. That's what a lead magnet does. I mean, sure, you can have fine princesses. Yes, you can uncheck this box if you don't want to receive out but it's not the intention. The intent your intention right as the email newsletter writer is for them to be your hope your your intention is for them to be receiving your ongoing emails with with eagerness. But what's happening is they're merely tolerating you. You're not sought after with your email news. They're tolerating you with with.  Stop it. Right like that's not what you want. No, nobody wants that. The truth, however I should say is that of course a lead magnet or freebie builds an email newsletter faster. I told you I within a few years I had 10,000 plus, but 90% of them didn't care. So I removed them. I still kept my about 1000 or so, but then I had built it I then I gradually built it up to this day. As you can see now with the numbers 5000 people who are at least half of them every single time and it's probably different. It's probably all of them, you know, all of them at some point are opening and those who do not open for like over a year right notice what happened. I prune my email list on a regular basis in April I had 5400 Sunday in May why 5000 one because I removed a bunch of people I removed about 300 people who weren't opening who hadn't opened in. I forgot it was nine months or a year or something like that I just I removed them. So I have I'm ongoing Lee saying I don't want to clutter your inbox. I only want you to receive my email news if you actually want to get them. So, this is why I don't recommend a lead magnet and this is why most of the people teaching your marketing are not long term thinkers. And this my general, I guess, concern or complaint with much of the marketing you're learning out there is that they say this stuff works, send lots of emails, then lots of reminders and, you know, you'll sell more you send lots of emails. You know how many emails I send. I send a monthly newsletter for those who want to do that but I was going to show you I hadn't finished showing you yet. My sign up, my sign up, my sign up page asks way more than most people do. Okay. And, and, you know, I require all of these fields I require the full name require obviously email I require how you heard about me was a through an affiliate who would who it is now. I require you to tell me whether you want to receive it once a week or once a month. So I essentially have two email newsletters right there already. And then country I think is, it's not required I really should require it but anyway us it doesn't matter as much to me before you can confirm subscription. Okay. Now, it's like, how many emails do I send, either you get my once a week email, or you get my once a month email. And then once you join my email newsletter you also get a confirmation message saying, by the way, I have a separate email newsletter. You just want, if you want to make sure you don't miss my ongoing launches might my announcements for my products and my services yes, I have a separate email newsletter of almost 2,500 people about half half the half my subscribers decide to join that one. And stay subscribed to get my you know how many you know how many sales emails I send when I'm launching a product how many reminders is total of two per month. I announced the product or the course or this coaching spots. And then I send one other email that month reminding them that I sent the original email to per month. Most launches you're going to hear oh aggressively send many emails, but well yeah you do make more sales in the short term. But you see, most people teaching you stuff. They sent a bunch of emails and they saw some sales more sales and they did when they sent fewer emails they go, I'm going to teach this now is sending more emails works. I've been around longer than they have. And I can tell you more emails and eventually burns out your list and you'd be like five to 10 years later you're like, marketing is as hard as ever. Whereas I'm here 14 years after I started my business 2009 and eight years after I changed my strategy because 2009 and start my business I was doing mainstream marketing, sending lots of emails doing lead magnets doing free webinars that you know the very sales the webinars all the stuff that you'll learn out there. And I burned out my audience I burned myself out 2015 I changed everything started with a new strategy and now I'm eight years in. Most people aren't even around in their business for eight years full time I'm full time for since 2009. I started, I'm very lucky I got going pretty quickly with clients and things like that and I've stayed like that full time. Since then. And now I'm eight years into an authentic marketing strategy and I can tell you the results are better than ever my marketing is easier than ever when I want to sell something. And I get more sales and I did last year. It's just like like that. Why, because I care about the connection I have with my audience. I don't start with a lead magnet. I respect your inbox. I am. I, I do things to be sought after rather than pushing myself on you. You see the difference. You wouldn't know that with learning short term because yes, if you use a lead man, you'll build up a faster email list faster, more subscribers than me faster, you will. If you send more emails, you'll make more sales in the short term, and then you start noticing over the years, not months, maybe, but years. Why is my marketing continually harder and harder or has remained hard and not easy like George, George's is easy. It's it's about the relationship. It's also about your own conscience.  And that shows it shows in your own self sabotage.  And then it's like it takes another few years to recover. So my question is, do you want to have to do that, or do you want to just start by doing the right things. But it takes patience. That's the hard part that's that's where my medicine is hard for you to swallow, because it takes patience. You can go with the mainstream marketers and make money faster probably actually make money faster maybe, but it's not you're not going to be able to make sustainable money you're going to burn out. You're going to have millions and you're going to say like, this stuff is hard. You'll continue being hard for the rest of your life, or you could be patient for just a few years. Maybe a year I mean making money would talk about that in other videos you can make money faster with a more connected heartfelt strategy. But in terms of the email marketing stuff, you need to be patient, and it's going to take a few years, but then you're going to have a sustainable income for life. How would you like that. I think it's easier over time. How would you like that. I hope you choose the long term, more patient method, which means how do you get joy now, how do you get fulfillment now. I know you're impatient. Most of us are impatient. You lean into the joy of connecting with your subscribers on a weekly basis. You can do it weekly do weekly do a monthly do a monthly you lean into that joy. You, while you have a small email list you try to get to know each subscriber by replying to them saying thank you for joining my list I'm so curious. What kind of content would you love from someone like me, you know, right now I have two large email list I can't get to know each of you anymore that's my disadvantage do you see what I mean. You have an advantage that I don't have. You still have the time. Alright, and the energy to get to know each person. I, there's no way I can do that anymore new subscribers come daily and I, I, you know, all I can do is to try to care with my heart on these videos and when they become customers and I try to care through, you know, through answering their questions and things. You have an advantage, lean into the caring for each subscriber, and you will stand apart for sure. And then that joy that caring will lead you probably to more clients faster, and you can let that joy sustain you with the patients to this kind of marketing that I'm talking about that that makes your business easier and easier over the years. I hope this is helpful. Thank you for for watching. I hope you got something from this. And, essentially, I that's my email marketing course I just taught it to you. Essentially, it's like having and continuing sending us few emails that you possibly can still on a regular basis once a month is a minimum. And some of you are I know I often get the question Oh George I haven't sent my email, send email to my newsletter for years now or for months now, can I still recover. How do I recover. Just send the next email.  Yes, sure if you haven't sent it for a year six months two years. You'll probably get more unsubscribes when you send that new because they for some of them forgot about you. But don't make it a big deal. Just send them what they sign up for the value that you provide the heartfelt authentic value you provide. And you can. Sure you can mention briefly.  Get back into it and just do it at least once a month and an email newsletter. I just taught you my entire email marketing course for free. Because it's really as simple as that and everything I've just said in this video you might watch it again, and look at my email newsletters look at how I do it, try to emulate that. I spend 15 minutes per email newsletter that I write, I don't, because I've already written the content or recorded the content on social media ungated without requiring people to sign up for me. My newsletter has no exclusive content. This is yet another point where I disagree with the mainstream the mainstream says no your email newsletter you got the most important in your porn asset in your business that's baloney. The most important asset in your business is your integrity actually, and your practice of creativity fitness those are the most important assets. Right. And the relationship you have with your audience, not only on the email newsletter, because people cannot open your email newsletter they don't tell you this people say. Email newsletter is the most important asset in your business. They don't tell you, oh, by the way, they might never open your emails again after a while. No, the most important asset in terms of the audience connection is the audience connection. And the audience might prefer to look at your Facebook posts or your threads post or your YouTube videos, they might actually open that more likely so why aren't you showing up in these different places wherever you want to show up on the consistent basis, showing your heart and your value. And then letting your email newsletter be a free service of convenience like I've already said, that's how I look at it to the people who definitely don't want to miss through email they like receiving email they don't want to miss your best content and your offers as well. That's how I look at it that's why my open rates and click rates are higher than average. And that my marketing is getting easier and easier over the years. So that I can lean more and more over the years into more expression experimentation of my authentic and whole creativity. So I hope this is helpful. Do what I do, because I believe in it and I teach what I do as well, but look at my new newsletters notice how I do it I spend 15 minutes back I didn't say I spent 15 minutes because what am I doing 15 minutes. Let me show you again. In 15 minutes. I'm just putting something like this together it doesn't I copy and paste the first few paragraphs of my latest article. I put it in there, I put a link to it I put a video to it because I usually record as you as you're watching right now this is the video I record companion to my article. And I also have on Instagram I put the recent. Of course it takes 15 minutes I'm just copying pasting a few things, making them click more to if they want to read not making them because some of them they might not want to. I keep it minimal says if you don't want that don't worry scroll to the next one. Do you want that don't worry scroll to the next one if you don't want any of it no worries. This is what I'm selling coming up if you don't want that no worries at all, you know, move on, move on with your life right. So YouTube, you know, so, so that's why it takes me 15 minutes per email newsletter and none of it is original. All of it is connected just to the original content I put on social media. That's ungated. You see, so I hope this is helpful. Maybe this is blowing your mind or or not I'm looking forward to seeing your comments below and any questions you have. I'll do my best to respond when I can. And thank you for for watching thanks for joining me on this journey. Be well, take care.


Welcome to the wide world of eSports, a show devoted to all things eSports. I'm your host, Catherine Norr. Today we're discussing the global eSports market connecting India, Latin America, and the United States. My guest is Ulysses Carcamo, founder of Now Play No Games and head of marketing for Shaky Corpse. Welcome, Ulysses. Hello, Catherine. Well, thank you very much for having me. All right. So I understand you're in Chile right now. Right now, yeah. All right. So can you tell us about what is your company Now Play No Games? For telling you a little bit about my company, I need to tell you about the path that I was doing from 2017. In eSports field, I start working here in Chile in the FESTI game. That is the biggest eSports competence that we have here in Latin America all day after the real from Brazil game show. And in this moment, I can connect with the industry and start working abroad. And Spain and United States and now on India doing the tournaments from Battleground for all the Indian eSports market that is growing in this moment really fast. Oh, that's terrific. So do you, does your company handle work in other countries in Latin America or is it just Chile? And this moment is Chile and Brazil. We have some projects that we are developing in Brazil with some game shows, ideas and some teams that I can't reveal the names right now because I didn't sign some NDAs and some contracts because we are trying to develop a partnership with different leagues from Brawl Stars, Battleground in these moments because we are starting to set up a really big marketing project abroad and we are trying to put all this together abroad to finish the production of the visual production over California LA. We want to do the final of the of the other tournament with the competitors and event in Los Angeles, California, where I was living before the pandemic and to launch a worldwide content from Los Angeles, California for the all these markets in the Aracil, Chile, and we are trying to focus in the Spanish speaking market. Terrific. And I understand you are just recently in Greece. Yeah. And so were you at a conference there? The conference was in Athens. It was a little tricky because with all the trip restrictions, I wasn't in my time in the forum because I have a problem with the trip over Holland. But after that, I can stay and participate in the conference that was focused in the casino companies that want to enter to the eSports market. And you know, this is kind of tricky for both industries because have a really real relationship between them and they are trying to start putting his sponsorships and trying to put investment in the in the eSports area that we need to develop in Mexico, Latin America and now in India. So what is shaky corpse? Shaky corpse is a is a team based on India from like a eSports professional over there that know really well the rosters from India and the talent and they are putting together these tournaments for underdogs that allow like 60,000 people to compete for know who is better in this first location, body of ground, mobile India. And they are doing a really terrific work because in the two, three, sorry, three years of life that have this company, they have like really big numbers for the Indian eSports market that is kind of tricky to because have like some particularities that is hard to explain about the VLAN connection and other factors, even that they have a really big size of audience for the from the people from India. And for that reason, shaky corpse is doing a really big work because they already have like concurrent numbers, viewers like 60,000 in really small communities and tournaments. And with this big project for the underdogs like this big tournament with money prize and everything that my company is sponsored them with the prices. They are trying to start being competitive against all the scene like gaming competitive, you know. Sure. So how big is eSports in India versus in Latin America versus the United States? It's a really good question because here for example in Chile, we are 19 million people and eSports viewers are like one million and two hundred thousand people right now with the pandemic are going into the eSports and start looking that we also in the biggest competition here in Latin America that is the League of Legends competition named the LA LA app. We have two teams competing on that. And for that reason, the numbers are getting bigger like in any part of the world because of the pandemic. Sure. And following with the question, sorry. After that you have Mexico that Mexico have like 20 million market over eSports or people video game interested looking for content on the web. And in India, I don't have the final numbers because I already have some numbers, but we are trying to set all the measures with the different tournaments. And in this first occasion, we're going to have our own measure about Battleground Mobile India. So what games are popular in Latin America? Chile, Brazil, Mexico? It's like any other regions of the world. First place is League of Legends, of course. After that is Fortnite. And right now Call of Duty Mobile and other mobile games are going up in the numbers. But it's like the same order that you have there in the United States or the video game community. The numbers are the same in all the regions. You know, I understand that mobile eSports are really big in India. And that it isn't as big in the U.S. What about Latin America? Yeah, Latin America is a really special place to talk about that because, for example, in Argentina and Peru and Chile, we have more cell phones than people here have. Like, I don't know if here in Chile, the last time the government said there are over like 27 millions of cell phones working active. And it's really weird because all the people here have a cell phone like any other part of the world. But the people are starting to play games with the massive phenomenon of Gandhi Grash that helps a lot. This is not a eSports, but it helps a lot about the inclusion of the culture, about the video games that we have really big problems with authorities trying to recognize that I started doing like political lobby in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina to explain about the phenomenon of the eSports and the industry and everything that will come. And in some countries, they don't believe in that. They believe that it's like a public health issue or problem. And for that reason, it's really complicated for the local environment to grow about investment and about regulation. What Latin America and companies, I mean, countries are most ahead in eSports? Right now, for example, we don't have like competitive teams from Latin America over like the big competition of the finals. In 2019, I was in the final of League of Legends in Paris and we only put only one team from Latin America to the finals and they losing the first round. But right now, it's kind of weird because we don't, we have like, for example, some eSports athletes in Mario Smash Bros. that we have like a world champion from Chile, another one from Brazil. But we are not doing so well in the competitive side of the industry in comparison with the Asian and the United States that you are leading the competitions like that. Sure. And so do you think that people in the United States should be looking seriously at Latin America as a potential market? Yeah, that is a fact because the eSports industry today will provide like a vehicle of marketing for your product or for anything and here in Latin America, the people loved to buy like American products and the eSports products, the community here recognized that the better products are from America or from South Korea or from Japan. But it's a really good opportunity for United States companies to come here to try to take this marketing billboard that are really cheap because the industry is cheaper here in the region and have like a really good profit of taking this opportunity here in Latin America nowadays that is really, really cheap to do it with really big numbers of audience. Have you noticed any particular trends that you find interesting in eSports in relation to any of these three regions that you're dealing with? It's crazy that you ask me that because right now I think the most interesting trend in the eSports market is the NFT trend, non-functional tokens that is the same model that the video game industry always have that sell like skins and everything but right now with the blockchain and Ethereum technology you can have like I don't know a shoe from Mario that it can be yours and even difficult with your own number and be yours forever or you can sell it and it's incredible all the possibilities that we have in NFT and video games of how to make revenue or new ways of monetization that the industry needs in this moment really bad. Do you personally work with NFTs or does your company? Yeah right now I'm working with a Barcelona company play the game and we are trying to develop some NFTs that they are starting working by them with Binance and they are doing some projects for for example for Rosalia and other projects for La Coba de Rey that is the national competition from the soccer and they make the first NFT from the trophy of the Coba de Rey. So I'm curious clearly the United States and Latin America have a lot of ties and lots of different ways how did you end up being involved with India? Oh it's a really good question the the thing that my original project before pandemic was to settle up in LA and start producing audiovisual content for the industry from from Latin America to the Spanish speaking market you know and after the pandemic hit we start like rethinking about our company and about our service and we realized in size the opportunity that in these kind of markets the problem with the little companies or with the little teams that have really good internet numbers but they don't know how to handle the YouTube business and that kind of revenue incomes that came from Twitch they don't know how to settle like in the legal aspect in the marketing aspect and for that reason we start like taking these teams that have some really good traction over internet in their own in their own countries and try to give the advice of what we was doing in California of creating this first company and with this vision for their own speaking markets in this case India is a really really big market and they have a really good enthusiasm for the e-sports industry in this moment. So I'm curious about your company name now play no games I would almost think it should say now play games so how did how did that name come about? Come about because I have a partner that is he is Spain and we was thinking about a lot about the the name of the the company because we want to do something cool and we are a speaker, a Spanish speaker native and for that reason we want was trying to understand like the the brands in the United States when we was living in California and I think in now for like the current moment that for me is a really important thing that I believe in the present you know and no play no games is because like I I know that grammatically maybe don't have so much sense but it's like now is the time for the industry to to play hard but not as a game as a business or as a really powerful industry that is taking shape in this pandemic times. It almost means that we're let's be serious about this or something like that right? That's right. So you know since you let's let's talk about Latin America are you doing anything in Latin America I mean not Latin America Central America? No in Central America and we don't have a current project in this moment only we was advising a League of Legends team that was named kindly KLG and we was doing like marketing advice with them connected with Mexican investors and we was doing a really good work with them and over Mexico but we decided to don't do like tournaments or that kind of stop because the the pandemic situation in Mexico like us in in any place of the world was really was really bad at the moment that we could have like a project or like a tournament and we decided to shut down and wait but in this moment we we are advising this team that competes in the LLA that is KLG. Okay so what are some unique problems or barriers barriers or challenges that you see in the countries that you're dealing with? The first one the most important I think is the the low radio of investment for the esports because the traditional capital here don't understand so well this new trend and for that reason it's kind of tough for the teams to get fundraising or sponsorship and the other thing is like the technology access that for example the people in Brazil we can have like a really good audience there but not anyone have like a PlayStation or a mobile or something like that and for that reason it's like the poverty of Brazil for example of the digital the sorry I forgot the word in English but the people in some places don't have like the culture of video games but we have like a really big markets open to take the opportunity to them in mobile for example and the people over there maybe don't have the access for PlayStation Xbox but they are trying to to play these really simple games that are developing for like in the in the laboratory. Sure and so right now the Olympic Games are going on in Japan and what do you think about having esports as an Olympic sport in the future? For me it's really simple because I was thinking a lot about the this debate and for me it's chess decide like the the whole thing because when you are playing a video games you spend like more energy the calorie consumption is different and for that reason for me it's really simple esports should be at the Olympic Games. Sure yeah and I I think it's going to be there I think it's just a matter of what form what game you know whether it's going to be Rocket League or you know how it's going to look. So you've talked a lot about the pandemic and the challenges so do you think that things are changing I mean you've you've had a unique opportunity because you were just in Greece so you actually got to go from you know you've been in the US you've been in Greece you are now in Chile tell us about like what it what it looks like to you. Yeah it's really weird because when when I looked the industry at the first time I was working in Germany in Hamburg in other field doing like political loy and when I was coming back to see my family in 2017 in three days before my my flight I met the people from the esports observer that they was trying to create this first company that informs about esports and everything and that was the first time that I I realized about the opportunity in Germany and after three or four months I start traveling like every country for five or six months and going to the exhibitions tournaments and everything was really easy to connect with a really high executive from the industry in that moment because everything was kind of starting as this final shape that they want to give to the esports the publishers right now they want to do like these really big shows and really big arenas and we are seeing how the investment are going over there and esports going to I think is going in some point to defeat like the traditional sports about audience numbers I think that's going to happen in I don't know two or three years. Sure yeah so um what so what's next for you you know like as the pandemic hopefully is you know winds down and things start opening up what are what are your thoughts about where you're headed? My my company organization we think the company always from doing the content in LA because we we believe that the opportunity in LA is unique because the the price of the content from LA is already crazy because California Los Angeles already win this the this competition of the quality of the content and for that reason I think the the the next thing for us is come back to LA and start trying to settle agreements and partnerships with the content productions over there and give the assistance to take it for the speaking Spanish markets and resell rights and we are trying to to to take that that thing over like in Chile because it's my hometown and it's really easy for me to get to the executives here and to try to pull projects together but the thing for the company being in LA and start working again I don't know in 2022 because I I don't think that right now is the proper time to to move back to LA again. Sure sure so if people or companies want to talk to you about you know your expertise in doing business in Latin America is that that's something you invite them to do? In this moment to be honest it's kind of tricky because I'm in three big projects and for that reason I want to finish everyone at the time and after that maybe I can take some some other projects but right now I'm trying to finish the India's tournament and the the the thing with the NFTs that we are trying to put together famous people from Spain from Brazil and trying to make these NFT collections for eSports community and with partnership with Binance. So how can people find your companies? Over right now we have my my email contact we are going to launch the website in seven days more when we launch the Indian tournament that we will start in a week and that day we're going to launch the the website for for our business but if my mail is the better way to contact me. For LinkedIn right you're you're on LinkedIn. Sure okay with under your name so anyway thank you Elyssus I really appreciate you being on my show and it's definitely terrific to learn about what's going on in other places of the world while we can't travel so much. That's right and for me your your show is really good about that because when I was in Chile in Brazil in the pandemic that I had the opportunity to go with Brazil to work on eSports when I was watching your show I can understand what is happening in the other places and I want to thank you again for having me. Oh you're very welcome it was a pleasure anyway thank you to our viewers for joining us today make sure to tune in next week. My guest will be Benjamin Bueno de Mesquita the founder and CEO of Beacon GG we'll be talking about trends in eSports see you then.


Good day, fellow investors. I hope you like the background. It's a little bit different because I'm on holidays.  The things that I have been doing are, I have been writing for an American investment platform daily articles. So in the last two and a half years, I wrote more than a million words. A lot of the content there is on YouTube, but that was daily articles. So a lot of work, not in depth. I want to go in depth, not wide. So I resigned from that, but I was getting about 50,000 per year just to write articles. So they got the emails. I think they collected more than 150,000 emails in two years that they will be using for their marketing. But I learned a lot while doing that. Now it's time to go deeper. So from now on on YouTube, on my research platform, I'll have much more time to go deeper into analysis. One question that bugs everybody is a little bit, okay, what to do about currencies? And there is an answer to that, but that answer takes me with first the research for my research platform, managing my fund, looking what to buy, what to sell, analyzing stocks. That requires me at least a few days to prepare. So I hope that from now on, I'll really go deep into topics. It will be a little bit more technical, but it will really go in depth and add much, much more value. In the meantime, as I won't be producing content daily, I will be answering comments on a daily basis. So there will be videos and I think I will really improve the quality of my YouTube channel and first and foremost, the quality of my research platform and of my fund management. So those are the three pillars that I will be doing. The first is research platform, fund management, those go hand in hand. And whatever I can share on YouTube because I love everybody, all the 15,000 almost subscribers. So it's beautiful. I love answering your comments. I hope I'm adding value to your financial life and this is what makes me happy. So just a little bit of a channel update. In the future, I see myself hiring research assistants because there is a lot of work that I can delegate an editor to write, to improve my writing skills, my blog, social media management. So really growing, I really hope that this grows. That's why I resigned from being a full-time professor at university from writing daily blogs to really focus on this huge opportunity that I have thanks to what I did in the past and 100% thanks to you. So I thank you all. I give you this view. I hope you enjoy it. It's a different view, but I'm just relaxing for a few days, shutting down, closing the doors of the past and going to new opportunities. Thank you for watching. Looking forward to the comments and I'll see you in the next video.