I'm like super intimidated coming here, and after Rich's presentation, I'm really, really intimidated now. Yeah, you can see we're a snarling bunch. No, no, no, no. But Rich, I have to say, I thought you were going to get into tokenizing eco shards, and then we really have come full circle, because then all this mining will be doing something good, but that would have been like the, you know, figure out how to use blockchain and in solving, in saving the world rather than wasting all this energy. And you were just, you were just getting good, so thank you for that. I think I was the last class at Stanford that learned FORTRAN, so that might have been. Hey, well yeah, go back to the beginning a little bit. Sure. How did you get started? You know, thanks for having me here. This was really incredible, the energy, and the love, I think, we all have for the natural capital project is palpable, and I think a lot of it is, a lot of you doing the hard work, but I feel like we are on this cusp of using technology and using data to in some way solve all the problems that humans have created, and hopefully we can solve it through the technology. But I was born in Taiwan, and when I grew up in the 70s, it was heavily polluted. It was a place where there was a lot of industry. I don't remember seeing the sun very often. I had asthma probably from the pollution, and then I moved to California. And in the early 80s, and you just remember seeing the blue skies, seeing the sun, and I feel like I lived outside all the time. And I think that growing up in Taiwan, coming to the U.S., and then eventually going back to Taiwan, especially nowadays, the industry is gone, and Taiwan has come back to being what the Portuguese call Formosa, which is this beautiful island. And you see how much change that human progress can pollute a place, but also how much you can restore it if you put your mind to it. And maybe that's the beginning of my, and again, I'm not a professional in the environmental sciences or I'm not a professional in the climate, but I feel like my roots have taught me a bit of the cycle, and my wife Akiko, where we both, as we have thought about what we can do for Stanford, is, she grew up in Costa Rica, and so similar, you know, similar, what is similar about it? Well, I guess it's green, and beautiful, and very bio-diverse, but we probably have the same sort of affection for nature and environment and diversity, and I think that was a big part of our wanting to be part of the environment and energy community, if you will. And that was, I think, started 10 years ago, where the building we helped name in the Science and Engineering Squad, Y2E2, as it's affectionately called, started and being part of that building, but also being part of seeing what's happening in the work that's done there in a very, very interdisciplinary, in a very, very multifunctional way. And I thought that was unique, and I know you were a big part of that. So it's hard to believe it's been 10 years, but that's a... Yeah, that was a huge moment, actually. The first real home on campus at a major university for highly interdisciplinary, kind of cross-cultural, cross-the-world work. And yeah, that's what this community here is. I think we're at at least 40 countries represented among those attending the meeting, and I know we're working in many more countries than that across the world together. And just thinking about your own path and how did you get into so much kind of international work? What was the path? And are there lessons, maybe, in your business experience or other life experience in approaching like what we have? We're just very entrepreneurial people, but coming together in teams from a lot of different backgrounds. Just sort of the academic side, but as Rich is laying out with real decision makers in industry and government and communities, how does all your experience kind of translate to what we're up to? I don't know if it's experience, but certainly my observation is, you know, my experience with starting Yahoo, which was done in a corner of the science, you know, sort of the engineering building in the trailer. It was instantly global. Within months of 1994, we had visitors from 190 different countries, and this was just really early days. It was still a lot of researchers, a lot of people who are using internet for development purposes and not for commercial. And so this power of being very open quickly and the power of having accessible internet to information that, you know, I think always theoretically was in our heads, but to see it actually happening and flowering was quite incredible. And I think, you know, it's been 20, almost 25 years since sort of the web started, and maybe longer, 20, almost 30 years, that power is now really manifests itself in multiple dimensions. And the most notably is the cloud, the evolution of the cloud. And but the same principle of putting tools and analytics and potential system making into the hands of people who are closest to the problems and closest to the solutions is not unlike when people were able to publish information first hand. So when you build a website, you can, you know, the protocol allows you to be able to publish it once and then have everybody else in the world see it. That is the way you intended to see it. So it's still very similar in that I think so much of the entrepreneurial activity starts and ends with being able to have those tools being available and the data that is, you know, as we all know, it's garbage and garbage out. You put bad data in, you're going to get bad data out. But if you can really have a source of truth and if you really have a high quality standard of being able to avail these tools into people's hands, I think that decentralized, open, accessible nature can be a real benefit. And we've seen some of this, obviously, in Silicon Valley here in entrepreneurship, you know, people really have gone from starting businesses where, you know, when we started Yahoo, you know, we had to figure out, we had to go build a data center, we had to go servers, we had to do things that today I would say most of the entrepreneurs that are starting companies now basically get to AWS account and work on their laptops and sit in cafes and, actually, sounds like a pretty good lifestyle. But it's because all the tools they need, a lot of the tools they need are now abstracted away from them having to do it themselves, so there's been this whole ecosystem developed. And one of the parallels, if you will, with conservation is Akiko is a, my wife is a founder of a conservation network and it's called Wildlife Conservation Network and it started about 15 years ago and it really tries to encourage conservationists and these are conservationists around the world that are saving a certain species. It could be cheetahs in Botswana or snow leopards in the Himalayas. And so they try to find sort of top species that affects the entire sort of ecosystem around them and they really use this metaphor of trying to empower these conservationists as entrepreneurs, try to give them tools, try to give them know-how, try to give them networking. So rather than these conservationists are working in Zimbabwe trying to save, you know, painted wild dogs by themselves, they have this vast network of colleagues, of resources and what we've seen over the 15 years where we get them together once or twice a year where we give them expertise or experts so they can have an ability to access them is that these entrepreneurs, entrepreneur conservationists, but they're really entrepreneurs, take advantage of technology, take advantage of their scrappiness, they figure out how to negotiate with ranchers, they figure out how to deal with poachers and so you see the resourcefulness that happens when you're able to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit which I think is in all of us, but the real breakthrough has been availing them with tools and resources and I think we're just in the beginning of that, right? So I think the natural capital project and especially the emergence of software enables people to be more entrepreneurial and to be more, you know, acting locally for the good rather than having some grand plan that have all come together in order to make something work. Yeah, let me ask you a little bit more about that and then we'll open up to some questions if people want to maybe stand by the mic. Or you can get rich to come back up and tell us the rest of that. Right. But yeah, we're just, it's really interesting. First of all, I'm so ignorant, I had no idea. I was going to ask you about scaling that within a few months you had all the world's countries knocking on your door. So how did you sort of scale so rapidly? And in the context of our own work, I'd say that over the past decade, I think we'd all say this, we've developed a lot of successful projects the way you're describing Akiko has through the Wildlife Conservation Network that really demonstrate the power of these approaches, linking to Emily's presentation, not only the science, but learning how to connect with people, how to listen really well, how to mainstream the thinking by blending our own kinds of thinking and ways of doing with those of the, you know, ultimately it's millions and then billions of people whom we aim to engage in this movement. But we're kind of at the stage of having pulled off a lot of impressive projects and now I'd say in terms of scaled China is on the cusp and actually up and over a bit and hopefully really driving to scale some of these approaches but what are your reflections there on the time it takes to, because it isn't just software like you're saying with Akiko's experience and what all is it that we need and how could we accelerate maybe the movement at this point where the software is one key piece? Well, so much of what you do is training and getting people who are not experts in the subject to be able to do something with the data and, you know, again the analogy is, you know, before the web, you had to be somewhat of a, you have to know enough to be able to get on the internet and publish something and be able to, you know, sort of like a gatekeeper whereas once the tools and once the practitioner part of it becomes, you know, any child that can publish stuff or kids are building websites in third or fourth grades now. So I think you have to continue to take this idea of not only training people to be practitioners and be able to be good contributors to this ecosystem but also continue to move the line so that people who are able to contribute to this overall, however you define the ecosystem, can do it more easily. I think I told you this but I was at a, I'm a golfer. I was at a golfing, it must have been a golf technology conference and there was a natural capital project person. Is that person here or somebody who's here, from Minnesota? Are you here? And I was totally blown away, right? Stand up, Eric. You were trying to use that. Stand up. Yeah. So, you know, and I know you had to like get people to understand the software. You had to spread the word. But to me, you know, there are probably ways in which now that people are saying, hey, you know what, we're going to try to figure out how we're going to remodel a golf course or how we're going to make it more sustainable or how we're going to make it less use, less resources. They can now turn to a natural capital project. So to me, it's having the right evangelist out there and the right training but over time really making it so easy and accessible to use. And the beauty about a data or a cloud-based system is that you can potentially see the network effect happen really, really quickly. And so I think the design and the design of the platform needs to be such that you want to encourage that flywheel to fly as fast as possible. Really good, inspiring answer. And who has a, who wants to join in the conversation? We've got a fantastic room full here. Let's not be shy. Jerry's a little bit shy. I'm shy. Rich. Okay, come on up. She works in the Y2E2 building. I do. Room 127. Stop by anytime. There you go. I have a question. Now you made me forget my question. Oh no, I know. I need some reassurance that the current administration is not going to be able to destroy the knowledge and science and data that's been created that is partially contributing to us being able to respond to the global environmental situation we find ourselves in. I would like that reassurance too. Yeah, we all need that. You know, I mean, I think given that there are 40 countries represented here, to me, you know, this is a, and I will try to stay away from being political, but obviously it feels like we're moving backwards in the United States as it relates to the kinds of things we need to do for our environment. And yet we're, I'm very encouraged to see that other parts of the world are really stepping it up. And I know... Tell us a bit about maybe your work in China. Well, it, and I do a little bit of work with the China branch of the Environmental Defense Fund and EDF, and I feel like there is this tremendous obvious problem they have in China that they need to fix. But I think that in turn has really translated to incredible amount of focus by the government on down and the private sector to really take money to try to make cities carbon neutral. They're taking some very active steps now. They're very ambitious. But to me, you know, it's one of these... You know, in contrast with what's going on in our country today, there's aggressive goal setting and then there is this aggressive multi-faceted strategy of trying to figure out how you're going to find the right solution. So it's not like they're not looking for one silver bullet. They're looking for multi ways of solving the problem. So I wish we can undo the things that are being done. But I fundamentally believe that people will want to do the right thing. And I fundamentally believe that places like Stanford and others that have invested long-term to solve these problems will ultimately prevail. But you know, these are storms that we have to weather. And hopefully your data is backed up somewhere. Thank you, Suki.  When you started Yahoo, I imagine you didn't envision the world we have today where there's a lot of false data being put out on the Internet. And both false facts and information overload so that it can sometimes be hard to find or to tell the difference between something that might have validity or not. Do you have any thoughts for us who are kind of way early in that to help immunize us to some of that risk in the future? You know, it's, you know, this is broader than just the environmental problems. But you know, obviously the challenge is that we have, it's so hard to know who to trust on the Internet right now. And you know, we see it, certainly I have young kids similar to Natalie's age. And you know, just to see them trying to understand where to go that's trustworthy and where it's not to go that's trustworthy. You know, we read about the issues that Facebook and other social media sites are now facing. It's much more dangerous now than when we started, you know, 25 years ago because you know, so much of the Internet in the beginning was a, it was a place based on people's goodwill. It was presumed that you are a good actor and then we all help weed out the bad actor. And at some point I think in the last decade that kind of flipped where there is enough incentive for people to act badly that you really don't know who to trust anymore. So now we have this massive, you know, infrastructure that is being set up underneath what we all see to try to figure out who's right, who's wrong, who's the good actor, who's the bad actor. And it's probably just like bitcoins that are, it's a lot of resources wasted to try to counter, to outsmart each other because we don't trust each other anymore. And I think, and this is a broader set of problems that the society has, you know, everything from Snowden to the emergency of cryptocurrency where people want to live, you know, between, you know, not dependent on the US dollar or the Chinese R&B or whatever, they want to have currencies that can go anywhere outside of these countries or intra-country, what do they call it, intra-national, not international, it's intranational. And so I think this is an issue that's not only with information and news, it's going to be about, you know, how we trade, how we buy things. And there's going to be, you know, for all the good that algorithms do, there's going to be tons of algorithms that are going to try to subvert a lot of that. And so I'm probably not helping answer the question, I'm probably making it worse. But I do think that the, you know, there needs to be at some point a way of creating these communities on the Internet. And maybe it starts with something like this where the community here are all, you know, hopefully basically good actors trying to do good. And then if you start there, it's, and if you can keep it there, then it's a lot easier than to have an environment where you have a lot of opposing actors trying to gain advantage on each other. Because you essentially have an armed race trying to outsmart each other. And unfortunately that's what's happening sort of the broader in it. So you're seeing a lot more activity of people trying to find, you know, try to close off their community so they can protect themselves or have communities that they all can verify and trust the people that they deal with. And I'm sure that something new will come out in the next five years, something that always does. But for now it's a challenging environment.  And now, you know, either the fourth or the fifth branch of military is cyber. And people do believe that's a national security or a weapon that you have to use to fight wars. And when you have that mentality, I think it's a very different thing than what the internet was 25 years ago. Well, really good question. With no real answers. It's a tough one. We have to confront all these tough things. And we do so basically with trust at the forefront. I was going to ask you to say one more thing, maybe, and then we'll have a break. Just turning to the brighter side of all this, I really like to quote I found of yours on the internet. I don't know whether it's actually yours though. We have a trust of sorts right here. It's without rain. There is no life. Right. And I just wondered, okay, well, it might be yours. Yes. Did you say that? Well, you know, I think when I decided to do investing and I needed to come up with a name and it's really hard to follow coming over the name like Yahoo with something really clever. And so Akiko says, well, you know, why don't you do something that she actually didn't request it to be named after her. But she basically says, you know, do something that's familiar to you and that's based around people close to you. And so my daughter's names are Miki and Emi. And so it's Akiko, Miki, and Emi, so it's Aame. And so she's very happy. But then you have to kind of say, well, Aame, you know, it can mean candy or it can mean rain. And of course, I had a focus around investing in cloud-based companies. And so rain really, really fit that theme. And certainly if you even go back five or six years, all these cloud and big data companies and we really wanted our investments and our portfolio companies and our entrepreneurs really to think about how not to just create companies that are, that does something in the cloud but rather have an impact. And this idea of, you know, really rain brings life in the real physical world and we think obviously in cloud businesses bringing real impact is where we want to focus our attention. So that's my current chapter. I think that's a really nice metaphor. Yeah, it was fun. And a win-win in the family office. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I get to go to work and they're not angry at me. All right. Well, we want to thank you. Thank you for having me. Wonderful. Congratulations. I'm tremendously grateful. Thank you. Thank you.


Hello everyone we're going to get started in just a second so hold on tight we're just going to wait another minute to allow for some more people to join thank you so much. Okay I'm going to go ahead and get started hello everyone, my name is Lisa, and thank you for joining our webinar on elements of a great Giving Tuesday campaign video. So for those of you who are unfamiliar with Mighty Cause before we get into diving deep into video and how to create a Giving Tuesday video. Just a little bit about Mighty Cause, we do run a Giving Tuesday event every year. However, we are also a year round fundraising platform for organizations. We provide tools that you can use year round, not only for your Giving Tuesday fundraising, but for anything that you need throughout the year, or any other tools that you may need for your organization such as peer to peer fundraising and social media platforms, integrations with Salesforce and MailChimp. So we try to provide a platform so that it's easy to use for any organization and it will help you accomplish any of your fundraising needs. So if you would like to quickly shout out our social media accounts, please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. And the reason I'm shouting those out is because all of our webinars. We actually share that on our social media accounts. So if you want to stay up to date with what we have going on any events we have we also try to share any tips for fundraising on there as well. Feel free to follow us and we share all of that information on there as well. Okay, so let's get into the power of video and how to create a Giving Tuesday video. So for today's agenda, we are going to be going over the power of video, why video is so impactful for Giving Tuesday. How to get started in creating a Giving Tuesday campaign video. Some easy filming and editing tips so that you can make a successful campaign video. I'll also be showing you some examples just to get you thinking about the type of video that you want to create. And at the end we're going to be going over through any questions that you have in your zoom panel there is a questions and answer section. So as I'm going through this webinar please feel free to ask your questions in there and at the end we'll be answering them. So to get started the power of video. So social media is really the heart of Giving Tuesday. Giving Tuesday was really born out of social media it was created as a response to other buying events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and it's really an opportunity for donors around that time to instead of opening their wallet up and buying a material item to choose to spend that money on a cause they feel really passionate about, or a cause in their community that they feel will be really impactful. Giving Tuesday is really built for social media and so that's why it's so important for organizations to really harness that power in order to make a big impact on this really important day. So how does video play into that. Why is video something that can be really important for a marketing strategy when it comes to giving Tuesday will give videos are really great way to give donors insight into what your organization is all about. It allows you to change up your messaging and share donor donors and new insight as to what your organization as noted here is really all about and what your mission is. So it's a really great storytelling device. And it also increases social media engagement on Giving Tuesday. As I noted giving Tuesday was created as a response to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. So during that time of the year donors are inundated with messages, not only from other nonprofits but also from other companies that are really vying for their dollars. So a video is the ability to differentiate yourself and again increase social media engagement. One also really important factor to video is that it allows you to improve your social media algorithm. So any social media platform that you utilize has an algorithm that chooses what viewers see at what time. They can curate their content and have people come stay engaged and use their social media platform. So Facebook and Instagram's algorithm in particular loves video and actually prioritize them in users feeds. If you are a user of YouTube or Facebook or Instagram, you may have noticed that you've been seeing a lot more reels and stories and short videos. And that's not by accident. That's very purposeful. Those platforms are trying to drive users to see that content because they find that users are more engaged with that content. So by creating a video, you're actually getting more organic or unpaid reach. And if you are choosing to pay for advertising on social media platforms, then you're going to get more bang for your buck because how much they prioritize video on their platforms. Okay, so now that we've talked about why video is so impactful and can be really important, let's get started on actually creating your video.  Have clear and concise talking points, and that will actually help you create and execute your video. So write a list of bullet points of things you want covered in your video and stick to the most important points. So one of the traps that nonprofits can run into is when you're asked to talk about your nonprofit, you want to convey everything about your nonprofit, all the programs and services and all the statistics. In a video, you don't need to share all of that history, you really want to stick to the most important facts and points that you're trying to get across. So for those of you who are struggling of thinking of what are your exact talking points, I have a challenge for you and you can do this challenge now, or you can do it after this webinar. And I want you to answer each one of these questions in one brief sentence. Now this may be difficult for some of you. So what does my nonprofit do. What would a donation. How would a donation affect my organization. And how can a donor support my organization. So again, each should be one brief sentence. So having trouble making it really concise, a little tip.  That's really helpful and making your answers super short and sweet. Once you have these answers that will actually really help you in brainstorming and storyboarding, what type of video that you want to create and what you want to get across. So, once you've written down everything that you want to convey in your video what are your key points. You want to get together everything that you'll actually need to film your video. That's actually not a lot so you're going to need some sort of filling device. This can be a smartphone or a video camera and we'll get to that in a little second. You're going to need editing software will also be talking about that a little further down and some optional things that you may or may not need is a microphone, and that can depend on if you're doing voice over if you're interviewing someone in a selfie stick or tripod somewhere where you can place a camera if you again if you're planning on interviewing someone or filming yourself, etc. Now, as you see, it's a concise list of things that you'll need. It's not that many stuff that you actually need to create a giving Tuesday video. But if you use what you have, you don't need a complicated camera in order to film a video. Smartphones actually have really amazing cameras nowadays, and they're actually really excellent and can be used to film giving Tuesday video and actually expensive cameras only really work well if you know how to use them. They actually may not work well if you don't know how to use them because they're complicated machinery. So if you're worried that you don't have an expensive camera you don't have a DSLR. No worries, you can shoot your video on a smartphone if that's the only thing that you have available. Now, if you are a little concerned about actually the process of making a video, you're not that technologically savvy, this isn't really your domain, but you think this is a really cool idea and you think it can be really helpful. I would really encourage that you ask for help. Don't shy away from asking for volunteer help. You know, see who in your organization or even in your network can help create a giving Tuesday video. So send out an email for potential volunteers and also advertise on social media and on your website. You can have a dedicated area on your website where maybe there's other things for giving Tuesday or in general for your organization you need volunteer help for. Feel free to add to your website that information. And also, a really great resource is volunteer match.org. So volunteer match it's free to use you can post any volunteer opportunities that your organization has. And I really encourage you if you really do need help to utilize volunteer match.org. I'm surprised how many people are looking to support an organization in their area, or to support a cause in the area from personal experience, I actually am a volunteer at an organization from volunteer match.org. I create their graphic content for social media, and I just went to volunteer match org and found an organization in my area that had a posting looking for someone. They needed help in creating graphics for their organization and I really was also bonded with their cause so there's really no harm in posting that if that's something if you need additional help. I really encourage you to ask for it if you need it. Okay, so let's get into some filming and editing tips. Before you also hit record on your camera, you're going to have to scope out where exactly you're going to film and your location can actually really be important to the quality of your video. So, when you are scoping out where to film, really consider the lighting in where you want to film. So, the sun is actually one of the best light resources for video natural light is typically known as the best light for videos. Lights are actually a really good natural light resource. So that doesn't mean to film in front of the window you actually don't want to film in front of the video, but you want to film in a room that does have a lot of natural sunlight coming in through it. So, if you can morning and evening is actually the best time to film because light is softer at that time. Now if you can't tune the morning or evening that's perfectly fine you can shoot in midday or afternoon. So, lighting is really harsh and you're finding that it's impacting the video. If you have a transparent curtain or a shower curtain or something that could filter the light a little bit that also works perfectly fine. What you also consider is to avoid overhead lighting. So really harsh lighting that is directly above you. And the reason why you want to avoid overhead lighting is that it can actually cast really unflattering shadows on your subject space if you're interviewing someone or yourself. These shadows that are on you or behind you can be really distracting on film. So really try to position your lighting so that you aren't seeing a lot of shadows again behind you or on you. So that's why natural light is typically known as the best light. Okay, so once you have your lighting down pack so the next thing to consider is your audio and audio sometimes is more important than the filming itself because bad audio can immediately have someone turn off your video. You've all experienced this when you've clicked on a video on social media or someone's family home video and the audio is very jarring you just want to turn it off. It's just, it doesn't sound great. So if you are planning on using audio as you are filming make sure that you are testing out your audio prior to the actual filming because there's actually in our day to day lives. There's a lot of noises going on in the background that you don't really notice in your day to day life. However, when you film it, you really do then notice the refrigerator running in the background, the fan, the television on the background. So you want to make sure that you're testing all of that out. So that, again, if you're interviewing someone or you even filming again anything with audio that you are making sure that you're in a good place for that if for some reason you are using a camera and your or your smartphone is the audio is coming out really fuzzy or fuzzy, you may want to consider purchasing a microphone. Again, it may not be necessary. But, you know, if you're for some reason the audio is not coming out the way that you want. So if you want to consider it there are a lot of adapters for our microphone adapters for your smartphone that are pretty affordable. Again, not necessarily you need it, but something to consider if you're having trouble with your audio on a camera you're using for example. If you are planning on having someone speak or you yourself are speaking you want to make sure that your microphone is as close to the subject as possible. So for example, if you are filming yourself or someone else as I mentioned, and you've placed and you're using your smartphone and you've placed your smartphone really far back. So that you are have a wide shot that you're seeing the whole room. Well, if you're placing the camera really far back, then people might not be able to hear what the person is saying or it may seem very far away. So if possible, you want to make sure that the microphone that you're using is as close to whoever speaking. So if you are planning on creating a video that has voice over, then you can utilize actually headphones with built-in microphones, such as most commonly the Apple headphones that have a built-in microphone. Some headphone mics are very delicate. So again, you want to test it out before recording. Sometimes if you're outside and it's windy, or you tend to move a lot, the microphone can actually pick all of that up. So you want to make sure that you're testing all of that out before you actually begin the filming process. And if possible, I recommend avoid recording audio outside. As I noted just a minute ago, there's a lot of external noises that can come up when you're filming, especially when you're outside. Now, this isn't always the case. If there's a really quiet outdoor area that you can find, that's great. However, sometimes the sound of cars going by, you know, trains, etc., any external noises, they can be distracting. So I typically recommend just avoiding audio outside. Also, wind is a big one as well. That can be really easily picked up on microphones. So that's why if you are planning on using audio from your video, I recommend just to not do it outside. Now you can film outside, but that audio might not be the best to utilize in a video. Okay, so when it comes to filming your actual video, once you've gotten the lighting down and you have the audio, when you're filming it, you really want to avoid shaky footage. So shaky footage is also an additional thing that can be really distracting from a video when you're watching it. So if you don't have a steady place where you can place your smartphone or camera, consider investing in a selfie stick or a tripod. Those are actually pretty inexpensive. You can find them on Amazon. You can find them really in any retail store. And as I said, they're pretty inexpensive and you can also use them in your personal life as well. But if you are planning on interviewing someone or you want to or you're recording yourself and you don't have a good place where you can hold your camera still, then invest in a selfie stick or a tripod and it will be really helpful. And it also helps position the camera higher as well. And it will look so much better in your videos. So as you also start filming your campaign video, something else to consider is how you are exactly orienting your smartphone if that's what you're doing. So you want to think about what are you filming this for? What platform are you filming this for? So for example, Tiktok, Instagram Reels, Instastories. Those platforms are really meant for vertical filming. So filming when your camera is upright like as you normally use your phone. However, if you want to upload your video on YouTube or you're making a Facebook video or something that would be an Instagram post, then you want to film your video horizontally. You want to orient your camera horizontal like you see in the image here. Now, if for some reason you accidentally film the wrong way or you orient it not the way that you want, it's not the end of the world. However, what can occur when you do film vertically for a platform that is ideal for horizontal is in the image in the right hand side that you see. This is a video that was filmed vertically, but as you see there is a black frame to the side of it. Because if you're again adding it to YouTube or Facebook or Instagram when you're editing it, you have to fill the space. So that's why filming horizontally for those types of platforms are best because then it will fill the frame that you're trying to create. Again, not the end of the world. If you do this, it's just a stylistic thing that you want to consider if you don't want your video to have those frames. Okay, so when it comes to editing, you want to keep your video really short because people's attention spans are very short. And that's also the trend for our most social media videos nowadays. In general, most social media platforms also typically have a limitation as to how long your video can be. For example, on Instagram and Twitter, you want to stick to a one minute video. And to be honest, that's really the amount of time that you need. If you want something longer, if you are want to post on YouTube as well, I would say at max five minutes. You can actually create several different versions of a video. So perhaps you want to create a longer version that you want to upload to YouTube and you want to put on your fundraising page. That's great. And as you're editing, you can actually make a shorter version that goes on Instagram and Twitter. That's a really great solution. But yeah, you want to I would say as short as possible. As I mentioned previously, you want to make sure that your talking points are clear and concise. So you may be wondering, well, where can I actually edit my video. How do I do that. So there are actually tons of great apps and editing tools that are available for you to utilize. Some are free. Some are paid subscription. Canva is an amazing resource. It is free and it has a paid subscription based on certain features that you may need. So that's a really great tool that you can actually utilize now for video editing. Inomoto is also a really great tool for creating a video. They basically do the editing for you and you just drag and drop the content, the video or the photos that you have, and they'll really build the video for you. So that's a really great easy tool if you really want to do minimal, minimal editing on your video. YouTube editor. YouTube actually has an editing system. So when you upload a video, you can actually then edit it through YouTube. So if you need to make a quick and easy edits, maybe you just want to cut some things from the video from your video, you can use YouTube editor. YouTube editor does take a little bit of time to save your edits. It will save. However, it does take some time to do so. So just one warning or one piece of advice, it may take some time if you're editing it through YouTube for it to actually save your final product. One of the other free tools to utilize is iMovie on a Mac and Movie Maker on PC. Both of these are really simple and easy editing tools to utilize. There are also several tutorials on YouTube that break down both of these platforms. So if you're unsure of how to do something on either one of them, there are so many tutorials available that break down how to add a title or how to crop something out, how to edit something. On iMovie in particular, you really can do actually a lot on iMovie. So those are two really free, easy resources that you can utilize depending on the device that you have. So I wanted to take some time to show a couple of examples of some videos just to get some ideas rolling for some of you guys and to show you what some other nonprofits have done. So let me share my audio and please let me know if you are unable to hear this video. Hi there, my name is Olivia and I work as a videographer for a nonprofit called One More Child. As you may have guessed, we're all about helping just one more child through things like foster care, child feeding programs, single moms and so much more. As a TikTok fan, I've been trying to convince my coworkers for months that TikTok could really help our organization. They finally let me download it during a big campaign we're doing called Journey to One Million Meals where $1 equals one meal. So now I'm asking for your help. My boss told me I could download TikTok if I made it my goal to get at least 20 donations given through TikTok. Let's prove the TikTok community can come together for good. Go to OneMoreChild.org slash meals to give now. And if you can't, could you like this video so more people could see it? Thanks for watching. Okay, I hope you were able to hear that audio. But in that video, please let me know if you were unable to hear that. But this video is a really great example because in 44 seconds, she was able to get across what her organization name is, what their mission is, what they're raising money for, and how donors can make a donation. So she was able to do that in 44 seconds. So video can also be a really great tool after a campaign has finished or during a campaign. So after that video, this videographer, she actually created a follow up video where she shared some of the results from that video. So I'm going to share with you that video right here. Hi, TikTok. My name is Olivia and about two months ago, my boss finally let me download TikTok for our nonprofit called OneMoreChild. She challenged me to get at least 20 donations and in true TikTok form, we raised over 10,000 meals for children and families in need. Many of you were still asking how you can help and honestly it's the same cost as a cup of coffee. Every year, our organization hosts a diaper drive where we try to raise one million diapers to distribute to single mothers, foster parents, and families in need. We're already about halfway to our goal and we need your help to reach it. The small gift of $5 would roughly provide 25 diapers for a child. Click the link in our bio to give now. Like and comment if you can't donate. Let's get that TikTok algorithm going for a good cause. Unfortunately, apps like Venmo don't work with our nonprofit auditing requirements, but we're working as hard as we can to fix that. Thanks, everyone. So hopefully, again, you were able to hear that video. So hopefully you're able to hear that video. But as you see in that follow up video, again, she had a really great call to action. She said either people can donate, like or subscribe. She shared the impact of the video and she was able to do that all in 44 seconds. So that was through TikTok. You don't have to create your video through TikTok if you don't want to. So I've created, I've set up another example to show you something completely different, an Instagram video. They took a different approach, but still great and really gets the point across. I'm going to share that right now. So what I really love about that video is that as you see, they're really using the tool of video to get across what they do as an organization and what their impact is, right? There weren't actually a lot of words. There was no voiceover. It was really just the video of this woman dancing and you really got across in those minimal words what they do as an organization. And also there was a clear link to where they can fundraise and the name of their organization. So that's really the goal of what you want to do. You really want to drive home what your organization does and you really want to utilize video as a different way of sharing that message and driving home that point to your donors. And as you see with this video, super simple, not that complicated, something that anyone here can create. So I want to leave the rest of the time that we have to any questions that anyone has. I know there is already some questions. So I'm going to go ahead and bring those up. So, let's see here. A question for nonprofits, what's the most essential way to get someone's attention? Definitely video is one way to get someone's attention. That's why it's really a powerful tool to utilize. And that's why we recommend if you can to create a video. So in regards to getting someone's attention on a video, you just want to make sure that you have, you know, really clear images against some of the things we talked about in the video. There are things that can immediately take people away from watching a video like a shaky camera like bad audio. So if you have all of these things covered, and it's a short video will keep someone's attention. If our videos run, would you recommend translating with captions or having a different video for viewers of other languages? That's a really great question. So yes, I think if you can translate with captions, that's amazing if your organization does work with specific communities that do speak another language. That's also your donor base. If you are in a community with donors that speak a different language, I think that's a really great, I think that's a really great thing to incorporate. And you can do that with any editing system. You can, if you did use iMovie, you can actually add captions to your videos. So are all the editing apps you recommended free? Most of them are free. Some have free and paid subscriptions. So the paid subscriptions will have obviously more features with Canva, for example, they have more stock images and videos. So the Canva premium has an amazing stock video gallery. So even if we're giving Tuesday you want to test out a Canva trial. They have actually a lot of videos that you can utilize on there if you want to insert images or videos into your own video. So there's certain video footage that you found to be the most or least effective. The least video footage. I mean, I think, like I mentioned, I just think there are certain things that will easily take people away from it. Like bad lighting and bad audio are honestly I think two of the biggest things. Audio I think is the biggest. If you have bad audio, immediately someone will click out of it. And clearly what I mean by that is it that's really related to if you are recording a video and you're also recording audio for that video. So in that example I showed you of that on TikToker. She was a videographer. She was doing voiceover. So audio was not bad because she was doing it through probably a headphone microphone afterwards. But if you are filming outside you're really capturing a lot of unnecessary noise that isn't really great to the ear. So simple things like that will make your videos more effective. And again also the length of the video. You can make a powerful video in 30 seconds just like the example I showed you on Instagram. You can really drive home what the mission of your organization is in a short amount of time you don't need a lot of words or video in general to really drive that home. Okay, so what types of footage have you found people respond to b-roll talking action shots. I think that varies. I think that, yeah, I think it really depends. I think all of them can actually really be powerful dependent on how they're done. So for example people talking. That can be really powerful depending on what the person is saying, right? So if they're saying something that's concise and the audio is good then it can be really powerful. You know if you are, for example, if you're an organization that works for children and parents have allowed you to film their children and incorporate that that could be really powerful. Again, if it's filmed correctly. And that's really, I would say the most important thing is that there isn't really necessarily b-roll action shots people talking. That really doesn't matter as much as just the quality of that small, the small, you know, the small length of video that you're taking. Could you personally work with her nonprofit and what are your terms. I cannot, but you know as I mentioned, really utilize volunteer match.org. Like I mentioned this webinar, I started volunteering for a nonprofit in my area because I wanted to, you know, support an organization I felt passionate about in our community and lend my skills and you'd be surprised how many people who maybe really invested in your cause would be willing to help. So, you know, reach out, put a post on volunteer match.org. Also, another really great resource to consider is to reach out to your local high school or local university. There are a lot of budding filmmakers who want to just work on a project. They are working also on portfolios for film school, or communication school that one extra help and working for a nonprofit even if it's just for as a volunteer can actually be really helpful for them and can also look at their resume on their resume as well. So that's another option to consider is reaching out, put a post on a local university or reach out to your local high school or even middle school to see if someone that you know, if students are willing to provide support. Yes, Paula has mentioned that 501c3s can get premium for free. Thank you so much for sharing that information. If you are doing a slide type video with words on the screen, is there a recommended timing on how long that word should stay on the screen so that the video keeps moving but is readable. I don't think there's necessarily a specific timeline. I mean, I think that just test out the video yourself like open it up and test it like read it to yourself and see if you can read everything and, you know, in one go. I've had times where I've created a video and I've realized that I've made it really too short that I'm reading it in my head much faster than someone who's never seen the words before be able to read it. So you just have to look at it a couple of times and think about it in a different perspective and also share with it with a partner that you have or a loved one or even someone at your organization. And check out the video, see if they can read it in the proper amount of time. But I'm not sure if there's like a designated time suggested time. I think it just really depends on the text that you have and how long it is. Okay, I don't see any other questions coming in. Final, final ask for questions. I don't see any that are coming in. So everything will be. Oh, I think there are some questions coming in through the chat so let me quickly just go through that. Can we have a shorter and longer videos with the same content in YouTube will it be marked duplicator spam. No, it won't be marked as duplicate you could upload the same thing that you're uploading on Instagram to YouTube. So you can feel free to. No, it won't be marked as duplicate or spam or anything. The only way something is taken down on YouTube is if it's reported. So the increase, should we focus on increasing subscribers or increasing views. That's a really great question. And I would say that really depends on your individual organization and also what kind of content and engagement that you're currently having right now. So if you're really building YouTube. I would say, I would just say focus on the views right now. Now, it's kind of difficult to say because I think at this point, like subscribers are also really great because those are people are going to be invested. I think really just focus on on creating the best content that you have and sharing that on every social media platform that you have. I think that's a difficult question to answer for nonprofits. So let's see what else. Okay, I think that's everything. So this video will also be sent I was recording so if you missed anything or you need a copy of it, we will be sending this out. And I believe it might be added to the are giving Tuesday toolkit. Okay, oh, sorry one more question before we go. What is a mighty cause doing this year for giving Tuesday. So every year we have a giving Tuesday event where organizations can register for our giving Tuesday event we will have prizes we have not announced that this year yet. But you can feel free to go to giving Tuesday. com. Let me pull it up. Giving Tuesday dot mighty cause calm. You can head here and register for your nonprofit here and participate in our giving Tuesday event. We have a whole toolkit with other resources like social media templates and social media guides and email templates all that good stuff that will help with your marketing strategy. Feel free to check us out there. Yes, you can register right now you can register today it's really easy and simple process so just head to giving Tuesday dot mighty cause calm and you can register right now and get ready for giving Tuesday. So, as I mentioned, we'll be sending this recording out. If anyone is planning on making a video after this, please tag a mighty cause because we love reposting videos of nonprofits that have made videos. It's a great joy that we have in our slack of seeing everyone's videos and we love reposting them on our social. So please tag us and we will reshare them or repost them to our stories. I'm so excited to see everyone's videos I hope you feel inspired I hope this was a little bit helpful for everyone. And if you have any follow up questions about anything that we've spoken about. Please reach out to support at mighty cause calm again support at mighty cause calm and we're more than happy to help answer any questions that you have. All right, well thank you so much for joining us today. I hope it was helpful and I hope you have a great rest of your week. Thank you so much.


YouTube team keeping clean what's going on is a engraving here with another video and in this video I just wanted to go over the first half of the Ravens and Raiders games really quick I know the second half is on the second half is starting. I'm watching it on my second screen right now So my apologies that I couldn't bring this video to you earlier But what I saw from the offense, I liked they were finally aggressive finally taking shots downfield Flacco was finally Receivers will catch him passes.  We appreciate it We haven't been used to that this year. We've seen enough drops from you. Thank you for holding on to the ball There was actually a play where um Well first Mike Wallace, he caught those two big 50 plus yard catches. So that Shocked Jimmy Macklin has continued to be our best receiver and shows why we needed him He was catching a lot of passes over the or not a lot of passes But he catching passes over the middle to get on the sidelines. He was catching everything that got thrown to him Who else Perryman still Perryman Flacco does not trust Perryman and it's clear because there was a pass Well, Perryman was wide open and Flacco say I ain't throwing it at guy and he ended up holding the ball for a long time And then I think he tried to throw it like been watching or something like that. Um, but either way It's been it's been a beautiful thing because our offense has actually been awake and our defense This this this game I was thinking it was gonna be the defense that was gonna be making plays for the offense and the offense wasn't gonna Wake up but the office has actually been woke up and the defense has been staying on par with the offense, too They've been doing that thing for the most part I know Brandon car gave up that big touchdown in Michael Crabtree But Jimmy Smith with the just picking up the fumble and with the Ravens even forced it in the first place And the Raven just ended up forcing another punt to the defense has been doing that thing Hopefully Michael Campanero, okay, step that abounds. It's all good I was hoping he would get a big part return But what we want to see going forward is just the offense to maintain the consistency of what they've been doing in this game So keep taking those deep shots. I'm sorry again that I couldn't come to you guys earlier because I planned on it But some things happen. It's all good. But anyway Offense just needs to stay aggressive act like you're down stay aggressive keep running the ball Keep taking the deep passes. This is the offense that we used to see a long time ago But we haven't seen it for the past two years So we'll see how this game develops we'll see how it continues and we'll see how it goes Anyway, I appreciate y'all. I'm gonna continue watching the game myself now and I'll see you all after the game


What's going on guys got Kyle here with the late sports cards and we are ripping 2023 tops chrome baseball breakers the light This is 12 box case number four Had her did a random before the break had Zach D with the Giants Blue Jays down to Brett S with the Rangers Good luck. Good luck. Let's see what we got Hey, that's awesome. Chris. I saw him post that actually I saw him post the Holland and say congrats Chris I was hoping that was you man. I've definitely seen you in a few of the immaculate breaks I was hoping that was you sir. Congrats on those man. Those are sick a couple of macula Hollins definitely take those No, righty guys breakers delight. I Am delighted box one packs with the plastic inside God refractors on the front rookie Kodai Senga Michael Grove rookie Cal Stevenson Zach Wheeler Casas rookie and Shade Langler's Sanchez it's like a It's kind of like an HGA or a choice product where it's um less total cards, but more more color more silvers in it So we have rookie here working to 250 S for a Ruiz eight We've got a wave to 75. Willi adame's Willi adame's for the Brewers Got a gold youth quake rookie. This one is Michael Grove So it has two autos and then some color and some silvers basically Sanchez Youth quake Michael Grove there Dodgers God base auto can wall the chuck for the ace first auto here can wall the chuck base And to 199 we've got a aqua shimmer auto s for Ruiz also for the a's there A's taking on both the first autos And a youth quake base of mj. Melendez Righty guys box two righty guys. We've got refractors of salve Perez simian Encarnacion rookie bay bow nailer rookie say a sozuki Robbie ray and Negative is going to be rookie ken wall the chuck ace Got another negative. This one is Corbin burns Oh nice one here gold the 50 youth quake is going to be uh josh young A nice one for the rangers. They're probably the al rookie of the year this year Nice young there Purple auto to 250 this one's joey weimer For the brew crew only purple auto Got a estuary Ruiz on the base rookie auto ace and youth quake of Riley green Three out of four autos so far for the ace Alrighty guys box three Still got 11 left guys Uh, we don't have any for personals trap at the moment. We didn't get too much of it That's the only reason Um, we don't have any for personals. I don't know that we're going to be getting much more of it So I don't know um if we will have them for personals trap Yeah, we just didn't get that much is the only reason we don't have them For personals right now a um refractor joe musgrove Cj crone hanager got refractors that gallant korea and um rindown Get youth quake to 99 nolyn gorman on the green to 99 You've got fuchsia Reese Hoskins at 399 for the uh fillies there Reese Hoskins fuchsia We've got a negative josh smith rookie First auto is sean a bouchard for the uh rockies there rookie base auto And janer d adds going to go to the astros on the base auto Youth quake garret mitchell right behind it box fort Hey, hopefully we can get some more for you f&s Hopefully my friend refractors you darvish Um, we got rookie refractor tovar poo holes Vladdy outman rookie dodgers and menace's rookie for the gnats To 299 we got purple speckle manoa blue jays Got a youth quake gold. This one is going to be um one of 50 sayas azuki nice at their cubs Got a wave rookie number to 75 call stowers Refractor auto is louis varland um refractor to 499 And mini diamond auto this one is gabriel morano Not numbered there on the mini diamond autos Nice one there the black and white mini diamond for uh blue jays And youth quake peraza refractor is hosemiranda Contreras cabrion haze tensor steer rookie Got oswald peraza rookie dl hall rizzo fuchsia to 399 maccuchan pirates And 299 we got a green youth quake hunter green green green for the reds Got wave to 75 could tell marty dbecks Got auto this one is black and white mini diamond auto james outman rookie dodgers Nice auto there dodgers on the black and white and purple is going to be tommy henry number to 299 Purple speckle there um dbecks And atrice and casas youth quake And ronnie guys box six And guys got crown team all coming up next i think we still got 11 left Eight left eight left on crown team all breaks next I appreciate you chris grabbing one there Andrew grabbing one there Appreciate you guys Matt grabbing one as well William grabbed a spot in chronicles. I think we're close on chronicles later Um, we're full on chronicles later appreciate that guys. Let's keep on going here again guys we have a pretty um Pretty full schedule tonight. So won't have a lot of time for personal tonight guys won't get to everything in the queue either um So we'll try to get as many as we can done before two o'clock here I'll be back tomorrow starting at five o'clock and i'll be doing Personals from five till about midnight. So we'll have plenty of time tomorrow guys if we don't get to you today There's a refractor otani Burns von grissom rookie refractor Got refractors of mccutchen Ramirez peterson and jack peterson negative Negative refractor We've got gold rookie nice one there number 250 for the guardians. It's tyler freeman Nice true gold rookie there guardians purple the 250 is cedric mullins We've got gold wave auto this one's number 250 going to the mariners. It's going to be jack larcen On the rookie gold wave auto 250 nice one there mariners A couple golds in this box have a estuary ruiz. I think this is the fourth ruiz auto here for the ace And youth quake pascatino got refractors of josh bell blue bob or tease rookie ladolo and ethans small Got a um oscar colas rookie refractor Oh, nice one here. We got true blue to 150 rookie riley green I set their tigers on the riley uh blue Nice one there to 150 Got true gold. Um 50 is charlie blackman Rockies for the angels. We got fuchsia speckle to 350 logano hop oh hoppy Auto is logano hoppy right behind it to 199 on the aqua wave Aqua wave rookie for the angels and a germain palacios rookie auto tigers bobby wit youth quake Yeah, you would think so eponets I agree. I agree ruiz has been uh coming out Refractor chris morrell rookie cubs onio cruz stevensson Got refractors mj melendez josh smith rookie and kershaw Got a gold youth quake. This one is kin walde chuck for the ace. It's a nice uh ace color match card It's a 50 there walde chuck to 299 rookie leover peguero purple speckle pirates Nice one here wave to 75. We got von grissom. Nice one there for the braves rookie shortstop Nice wave to 75 braves We've got auto will bring into 150 blue lava and base auto matthew batten for the padres youth quake parato behind Alrighty guys four left Four left and we'll get on to some crown team all next We're still at eight on crown Yep, still eight to go full case next got a link in the chat there if you guys are interested Um every every break you guys do by this week will get you a spot in the national promo as well We'll be doing that promo on wednesday. Um, we'll finish up the national promo breaks on tuesday night So then we'll get our list compiled and we'll do the promo on wednesday Refractor jake mccarthy Alonzo taylor ward. We got bayo rookie red socks garments uh dermis garcia mullins Negative rookie. We've got spencer steer nice one there reds Good rookie kind of getting over shadow by the other two rookies, but There's a youth quake hunter green another green green for the reds. They're number two 99 youth quake Got golf spin to 199 on the aqua This one is steel walker to 499 Steel walker on the refractor auto rookie and gold behind it It is cow Mitchell on the gold auto number to 50 true gold Nice one there pirates Cow Mitchell and then a steven kwan behind it guardians box 10 Oh, come on See some fire First up we have francisco alvarez nice refractor their mints jeter down shon murphy We've got refractors of cow rolly cody clemens and liberator Green wave is 299 ryan nelson rookie d-backs 2199 aqua of louise castillo. It's a cool-looking color match for the mariners there like that aqua 2 350 fuchsia speckle of jonathan india reds First auto is michael toglia going to the rockies their base auto And louis varland on the refractor rookie auto there to 499 twins a youth quake hulio And two boxes left Good luck here guys. This was the breakers delight case number four Do you guys have three indies in a row last night? Yeah And sam goes a lot quicker than you so In my favor nice more manageable, but it's still I feel you it's still rough refractor john gray uh masataka yoshida refractor Ruiz there's a josh young rookie refractor nice refractors in this one garcia and fujinami Oh nice one here. We've got aqua lava to 199 anthony vulpy Nice base vulpy there yankees It's aqua lava We've got blueda 150 is andrew mccutchin uh von grissom another nice von there fuchsia to 399 God rookie auto james outman and poo holes there. We found a veteran number 250 nice one there cardinals on the poo holes um veteran auto first one i've seen out of chrome this year nice poo holes there cardinals and youth quake um torkelson and last one here guys breakers delight case number four I've got crown team all coming up next still eight left in that one breaks next Good luck on the last box here guys You got a onio cruise tyler stevensson u darvish yastrimski avon herrero rookie Varshow and this is youth quake gold the 50 um bow nailer guardians there youth quake gold That's a cool looking car. We've got titans there adley ruchman on the um green titans insert to 99 Nice one there orials first color i've seen on these titans Nice one there And we've got ezekiel tovar this one is the uh radiating rookies nice hit there um rockies Shorter print on these radiating rookies these are sweet looking cards I like these A little adam in the top Nice one there rockies on the radiating tovar We've got black and white mini diamond auto tommy henry That's rookie debacks and g kwan bay is going to be refract a rookie auto for the pirates With a youth quake seah behind it Alrighty guys that'll do it for the um for the break there. We'll do a quick auto recap We'll get moving on to crown still got eight left for crown next guys Got black and white mini diamond rookie auto um tommy henry Got james outman black and white mini diamond marino got base auto estra ruiz james outman palacios batten totally up The inner ds got buchard got estra ruiz a's wall the chuck to 499 steel walker louis varland and louis varland to 499 to 299 tommy henry joey wymer to 250 to 199 logan ohapi got g kwan beta 499 Um, we've got estra ruiz to 199. Hey, what's up randy? How we doing today, sir? It's 150 will brennan blue. Um, it's a 50 you got albert pooholes the machine cardinals Got gold jack larson to 50 and we've got cow michael gold to 50 on the rookie auto Alrighty guys that does it for 2023 tops chrome breakers the light full case number four Get some crown going next appreciate you guys


Happy Easter! Just want to show you guys what we are having for dinner. So I made some baked chicken and these are thighs and on top you'll see some herb seasoning and then I powered like stovetop stuffing so that is what he is eating stovetop and I made some green beans and I doctored them up with bacon and then I made some macaroni and cheese some box macaroni and cheese that I doctored up and I'm gonna insert the video to show you guys exactly how I did that and then here is my plate I'm having the same thing except I like cornbread dressing and so that is what I am having I'm having homemade dressing and I like gravy online and then we are trying these sister Shubert's clover leaf rolls now I have bought sister Shubert's before and I really like them a lot normally I buy their yeast rolls but I wanted to try something different so I baked these up and they're pretty good now the biggest difference between the regular yeast rolls and these is that the package directions for the clover leaf rolls they suggest that you let them fall out so that is what I did and I baked them but they taste very good very similar to the yeast rolls and then for dessert I made sweet potato pie as you can see we've already taken a couple of slices out of the pie but we're having sweet potato pie so sweet potato pie dinner rolls and then here again are our plates the only thing different is Howard is having stovetop dressing or stuffing I should say and I am having cornbread dressing okay guys so the first thing that you're gonna need to make this macaroni and cheese hack is a box of the deluxe macaroni and cheese now if you try it with the powdered it's not going to work the same so you do need the kind with the squeeze cheese package also you're going to need a half a cup of sour cream I am using full fat sour cream and I did let this set out for a little bit and come to room temperature and then you're going to need a cup of grated cheddar cheese so the only thing that I did was boil the noodles so I boiled the noodles and I drained them I'm going to add in the cheese and you guys even though I'm just adding in a few ingredients to this macaroni and cheese it totally changes the taste and it tastes so good it just brings it up a couple of notches okay so I have all of the cheese squeezed out I'm just gonna stir it up okay so there it is now I'm just going to add in my half a cup of sour cream and next I'm going to add in half of my cheese okay so next you're going to need an eight by eight pan and I did spray mine with cooking oil or you can just butter it with butter or whatever else you happen to have and you're just going to pour the macaroni and cheese in and spread it out and sprinkle the rest of your cheese right on top just like that and there you go and of course if you like more cheese you can add more cheese so all I'm going to do is bake this in an oven I have my oven preheated to 350 degrees and you're going to bake this for 20 minutes and then I will show you what it looks like as soon as it comes out tonight for dinner we are having Dijorno rising crust pizza we cannot remember if we've had this before and if we have we haven't had it recently but we are having the three meat variety with pepperoni sausage and beef and here it is so we kind of had a little disagreement about this pizza if you've been watching our channel for a while you know that my husband kind of likes things a little bit under cooked and I like my pizza well done well he wanted to take it out a little bit early and I did not think it was cooked all the way so we had to do a little compromising and he finally agreed to put it back in the oven to let it cook just a little bit more so this is what we are having for dinner tonight and I'm curious I want to know does anyone else like things slightly under cooked and by that I mean cookies bread a little bit of doughiness I don't like that I like my stuff well done so I'm wondering which team you're on so anyway this is what we're having for dinner tonight we'll see you guys next time hey guys so for dinner tonight we are having jam and jerk shrimp from Margaritaville if you've been watching our channel for a while you know how I obsessed with this shrimp and so Howard made dinner tonight and we are having this along with some jasmine rice uncle Ben's and then he also made some fresh broccoli and sauteed that so there it is there's some broccoli and he has a bunch of garlic on there there's the rice and then there is the shrimp and all that seasoning you see on top of that shrimp is the blackening seasoning the jerk seasoning and it's so good it is pretty spicy but it does have a really good flavor if you're not into spicy you probably would not enjoy it that much but I love this stuff look at all that jerk seasoning on top anyway this is what we are having for dinner tonight and we'll see you guys next time hey guys we are trying out a new Vietnamese restaurant showing in my plate first I got the shaken beef which has the beef the bell peppers onions and then a garnish of carrots tomato and then steamed rice we're also trying out these Vietnamese tacos but they're made with wonton shells and they have chicken inside of them and Howard got the spicy spicy beef broth noodle soup and we also ordered some spicy Korean chicken wings they are not out yet but I'll show them to you when we get them here are the Korean fried chicken wings don't they look good hey guys so for dinner tonight we are having tacos I am still trying to use up stuff that I had or have in the freezer and in the freezer I had some ground beef leftover taco meat and I also had some shredded chicken with taco seasoning on it as well so I pulled that out of the freezer we had these flour tortillas in the freezer as well so let me show you what we're having so this is Howard's plate and he prefers flour tortillas over crunchy tortillas so you can see that there's some chicken in there lettuce and we are trying out a new cheese which I'll show you in a second he likes avocado and that sour cream and his other taco I won't lift it up but it's the ground beef that's in there and this is the tortillas that he is using this came in one of our subscription boxes a while ago and I just stuck them in the freezer the cheese that we are using is this taco taco bell salsa verde this is the first time that we had it and I just actually showed this on a Tom them hall and I'll try to remember to link that video in the description box and this is my plate I'm more of a minimalist and so I just have rice on the side and then I have a flour tortilla shell which I'm trying for the very first time some salsa in that same cheese and this is what the flour tortillas look like I really love flour tortillas and let me show you what it looks like so it doesn't exactly look like there you go so it doesn't look like the box the box makes it look like I guess it's a lot smoother I guess and more of a uniform color but you can see there's a lot of color in the tortilla and that's not from me cooking it it came out of the box this color so that's that the rice that we are having is my Mexican rice and I actually had a separate video on this I guess I did that video about six months ago or so and so I will try to remember to link that video in the description box as well for dessert we are having well really me Howard's not big into cupcakes but I'm gonna have a dessert and these cupcakes are from Kroger and it's a strawberry whipped icing and then the cupcake itself is yellow cake so this is what we are having for dinner tonight and we'll see you guys next time


I hope you're doing well. Welcome to this CUBE conversation with Momento. I'm your host, Lisa Martin. I've got both co-founders here with me, Kawaja Shams, co-founder and CEO of Momento, and Daniela Miao, one of our alumni, rejoins us, the co-founder and CTO. They're here to talk about something really exciting that's about to drop, Momento Vector Index. Daniela Kawaja, welcome to the CUBE. Great to have you guys today. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. Super happy to see you again, Lisa. Yeah, likewise. Great to see you too. Daniela, I want to start with you. We're going to talk about vector databases, their role in modern software. Daniela, starting with you, what's a vector? How do I obtain a vector? And why should people care about vector databases? Well, I think before we go there, let's just talk about AI in general. Last time, we spoke about chat GPT and how it's revolutionizing the world as we know it. None of that has changed. If anything, I'm ever more excited about some of the existing applications that's already out there, like GitHub Copilot and all kinds of AI applications. The world is just so busy enabling AI in their applications. And I think now is the time to really care about time to market how quickly can each person launch their, each company launch their products as fast as possible and bring those benefits to their end users. A vector is just a tool that software engineers have in their toolbox. It's always been there, but now vector databases enable them to actually use it to speed up their application and enhance the capabilities like recommendation systems inside their applications. Speeding up and faster time to market is critical for as you mentioned, Daniela, for businesses in every industry and of course on the consumer and business side, we don't want less things slower. Kawash, let's bring you into the conversation. Help us understand how vector databases are different than traditional databases. What are some of the advantages there? Yeah, so Daniela and I come from the traditional database world. We used to be on the DynamoDB team. And one thing that we're learning in the modern day is that old databases prioritized exactness. So if I'm looking for a student's name with a particular ID, the traditional databases are really, really good at that. Or they're good at generating reports like who are the students that kind of fit ages X to Y and so forth. Vector databases are very different in that they help you search for things that are similar to what you're asking for rather than exactly what you're asking for. And if you zoom out and think about it, that is exactly how humans operate with each other. When I ask you a question, you're not gonna give me exactly, it's very rare that I ask you what two plus two is, right? That's what a machine is used for. I ask you, usually we have an interlog, we're having a conversation and that lack of preciseness, that lack of exactness that exists in the human conversation is what leads to discovery because then we often discover things that we didn't even know that we were looking for. So the primary difference between a vector database and a traditional database is that vector databases allow you to find things that are similar to what you're looking for and that accelerates discovery. And that's critical, the acceleration of discovery as patience is one of the things that has dwindled in the last few years and I don't think it's coming back. I wanna expand on what you said, Kawaja, and getting Daniela your perspective as well is how vector databases can be used to enhance recommendation engines or personalized content delivery. If I'm on Amazon and I'm wanting to search for a particular products or products that are related, what is the value that a vector database delivers in that context? Kawaja, we'll start with you and then Daniela, happy to be chatting. Yeah, last week we had Mokon and Manju from Etsy was talking about the role that vector searches plays at a company like Etsy. Now Etsy is a little bit different than Amazon, right? You've got a lot more creative options and like when I think of Amazon, I'm thinking of buying a specific product and products like it with shops like Etsy, you're there to really discover. And a lot of times you don't even know what it is that you're really looking for but you have a sense. You're trying to articulate it and these vector indexes are kind of facilitating your journey in terms of discovering the products. Now, if you zoom out and you look at a really, really simple recommendation system, now this might not be the best recommendation in the world but like you can really simplify our recommendation systems work. You can look at, well, this is Kwaja. Here are the products that Kwaja has bought in the past. Can I express that as a vector? Now, once I have Kwaja's purchase history expressed as a vector, can I find other people who are like Kwaja, who have bought, you know, whose collective purchase history looks similar, not exactly the same, but similar to the things that Kwaja has purchased. And then I don't have to go and recommend to this user exactly the things that other users have purchased. I can take it a step further and say, what are the items that are similar to the items that people like me are buying? So now you've got this really massive opportunity to help me discover items that I didn't even know that I wanted all by doing these similarity searches and taking it to the extreme. And the most powerful thing here is that you don't need to build a really, really sophisticated recommendation system to make this happen. Now everybody can experiment with things like this and enable this type of discovery for their applications. Wow, the power behind that sounds incredible. You know, when we see the rise of obviously here we are streaming today, real-time data streams, the rise of it, sensors, IoT devices, social media, how can vector databases really deliver the efficiency in terms of ingestion, indexing, querying that streaming data so that the discovery is deliverable to whoever wants it whenever they want it? Danielle, of you and then Kwaja, you. I think a lot of it can be captured in a vector which is really when you look at it it's sort of a mathematical representation. We don't need to get into the details here but it's really powerful to be able to capture it in this representation so that you can search over it quickly. You can search over a large amount of data quickly and get sufficient accuracy. If you want exact accuracy it becomes orders of magnitude harder but it is really powerful to have this concept where you get sufficient accuracy yet really blazing fast performance because that's actually how, again, like Kwaja said is how humans operate. We're not looking for the exact answer every single time we just need it to be good enough and we need it fast. We need it like yesterday is how people feel nowadays. It's true and I don't think that expectation is gonna go back at all. Nobody wants less things slower. So get into Momentive Vector Index for me. Kwaja, what is it, why did you create it and how is it different from existing solutions? So as a company, Daniel and I always try to improve the developer productivity and right now, everybody is busy building AI-enabled capabilities and the race is on and time-to-market matters more than ever. So we prioritize, we started looking at what are people spending their development cycles on? A lot of people are building AI-enablement capabilities through a system and vector databases and vector indexes underpin a lot of that. The difference is, it's really, really easy today to build an experiment with a vector index. And as soon as you go and try to operationalize it, take it to production, handle the scale, get the replication, get the availability, like there's a whole lot of knobs that start to appear. You have to take this toy project, you have to deploy it in the cloud, you have to understand how many replicas you need to make sure it's highly available, you have to understand capacity management to make sure it's scaling, you have to understand what indexing algorithms you've got to use, there's all these parameters, you've got to say how many indexing nodes, how many query nodes, how many storage nodes. This, all of that is completely surmountable, but this is any cycles that people are spending on this are cycles that are not going towards innovation in their business. And our hope with this momentum vector index is to eliminate all of that. It's completely transparent. It just has two very simple APIs. Index a vector and then given a vector, find me the top nearest neighbors for that, for that given vector. That's it. All of that complexity that I just mentioned gets abstracted away and that undifferentiated heavy lifting becomes momentous problems so that our customers can continue focusing on their business domain. And that's exactly what they want. Quadra rate customers, they need that time for innovation that are delivering and contributing to revenue. Danielle, I'll talk a little bit about from the CTO's perspective, the momentum vector index. What is in it for customers? What value is it going to deliver to developers in terms of making that innovation more of a reality in their organization? What Quadra and I started with this vision of serverless for everybody. We do mean it literally for everybody. We started in caching. The world is moving towards AI and vector index and we want to be right there helping them accelerate their speeds. I can give you an anecdote last week during our community conference, Mocon. A developer came up to me and said, I'm really excited to use vector index. I have to go and do a tutorial online on machine learning and then I'll be good to go. And I told him right there and I said, let me stop you right there. You do not need to learn any tutorials on machine learning.  You've worked with databases before. You can work with our vector index. You do not need to learn terms like quantization or even indexing algorithms that Quadra mentioned. Our goal is to democratize this AI development for every developer out there. You don't need a PhD or even a medium expertise in machine learning. It should just be APIs that developers lived and breathe and they should just be building their unique applications on top of it. And that is what really excites me about this service and our ability to kind of provide that acceleration for every single developer out there. I tell people and I told that person at the conference, you can build an AI-enabled application today with momentum vector index. Wow, that acceleration, we're gonna unpack that in a minute. So it sounds like, Quadra, you talked about some of the complexities that momentum vector index is abstracting, but it also sounds like from a learning curve perspective, you've taken out a lot of additional time and resources required to get started. Talk about how you accomplish that and why that's such a value for customers. I think you can draw parallels to how databases used to work, traditional databases, you were talking about them earlier. In the early days, if you wanted a database that can do 10 million transactions a second, you needed a team of DBAs. You need to go buy very, very expensive racks. And there was only a small subset of companies that had the ability to pull that off because of the time, the dollars, and the human resources required to be able to do so. Today, if you want a database that can do 10 million TPS, you just go to the Dynamo console and you say, create table. You don't need to understand all of the distributed systems intricacies. And that has led to a whole new class of innovation because anytime somebody wants to build a product that requires that kind of throughput, they don't have to take a pause, go get a PhD in distributed systems and then come back and build it. That massively increases the pace of innovation experimentation and delivery to the customer. So just like that in a vector database, there's a whole lot of concepts. And even as we build the service, we're finding that customers have to deal with that. And a lot of them are solving, they come to the same conclusion. It just takes them much, much longer to come to that conclusion. And a lot of times wrong configurations lead to outages, performance problems and scalability issues for customers that we can just get out of their way by making the right decisions for them. And that includes things like, just simple things like the number of indexing nodes you need or at what point should you brute force versus at what point do I start to do nearest like HNSW or some type of approximation algorithms? That is something that sure, if you've got expertise in AI, you may wanna go turn those knobs. But for the most of the world, you just wanna build the application and just focus on the business logic. And that is the trade-off that these serverless services make. They provide you with a limited SIF API area, surface area, so you don't have as many knobs that you can turn, but in exchange, you get developer productivity, you get latency characteristics that you can rely on and you get scale characteristics that you can rely on to build experiences that you can deploy at scale for everybody. And I think you just mentioned one of the key points there, Quasar, is that scale, we talked a bit ago about how vector databases themselves can be made more scalable to handle all of the real-time, the high throughput data streams that every organization is doing and to handle and manage that scale with ease while enabling the innovation is really sounds to me like a game changer for customers in every organization because there's competitive advantage to being able to innovate faster, get products to market in the hands of customers, deliver those similar personalized experiences that we all want faster than your competition. Absolutely, and it's really exciting for us to be part of that journey and to kind of accelerate it for our customers. So let's talk a little bit about from an acceleration perspective, you both did a great job of talking about the value in vector databases, what Memento is delivering with Memento vector index, but in terms of abstracting complexity, training, how can Memento vector database accelerate training and querying processes for things like machine learning models that utilize vector representations? What's that acceleration of training? What does it look like? Yeah, I mean, for us, it's less about, so we, the vector index is a small part of the end-to-end kind of pipeline and our very narrow focus on optimizing this pipeline allows us to accelerate the search capability part. The training, the modeling, the embeddings generation, there are other primitives for that, and that's where there's other services that offer that, but right now, what we're launching is focused primarily on how do I store an index to vectors at infinite scale and how do I deliver the search results to you very, very quickly? And the temptation is always there for us to go on the end-to-end pipeline, but it's really, really important for us to kind of maintain that purpose-built footprint that we have, focus on just making the search experience as seamless, as easy to use, performant and scalable as possible before we get distracted by the other areas in this pipeline. And our focus remains on the training that we're eliminating on the human side to be able to do these searches. That laser focus is gonna be a game changer for a lot of organizations. So Danielle, I'll talk to us about when this is launching, when can customers get their hands on it, and what's been some of the feedbacks if you mentioned that one client that said, I've gotta learn all these things first machine learning and he said, actually, no, you don't. When can people start playing around with this? Well, we have the wait list available today. So anybody can go to our website and click to join the wait list. Everybody on the wait list gets sneak preview to our product in a couple of weeks. And then in the next month or so, it will be more generally available to everybody. But if you get on the wait list, you get a sneak preview of the vector index experience. Of course, alongside the vector index, I was very honest when I told that developer, you can build an AI-enabled application today. We will be releasing all kinds of material on how to use it, sample applications. We have a bunch already that's already available. You can build your own chat bar, recommendation system, any kind of image similarity app, like really exciting stuff that people can get hands-on with immediately. Very exciting stuff, of course. Oh, Quasya, go ahead. Oh, sorry, I was just going to say, if you reach out to me or Daniela and mention the show, we'll put you to the top of the list and we'll get you access even sooner. So there are people that are using it. Hey! You know, just let us know. And the feedback so far has literally just been, people are astonished at the ease, like the core difference between what we're building and what exists out there is operationalization. It is really easy to build toy projects and experiments with what's available today. And we're just eliminating that hurdle from toy project to something that you can operationalize, deploy at scale, and rely on. I love that, that time to market, that time to value is so critical. You heard it here, guys. Quasya said, if you reach out to them, you get put to the head of the class on the wait list to get your hands-on moment to a vector index. Because where can clients go and imagine your customers to the website to be able to sign up for the wait list or is there anything special you want them to know? If you just go to gomomento.com and there's a banner right there, you can join the wait list and you just enter an email and we get in touch. We're basically, we have the capability working, we're just letting in a few users at a time. There's been a lot of sign-ups already. So we're just, again, we're deliberately trying to let us few people in as possible so that we can give them a curated experience, but also collect a ton of their feedback. Right, that's the main thing is like, whatever you launch is not going to be perfect in terms of capabilities, in terms of the APIs that are needed. So we're using this as an opportunity to really work closely with a small subset of customers to make sure that what we have built actually works in their specific applications as well. And that's really a nice symbiotic direction that you're going in in terms of helping those, those select few really get their hands on it to help you evolve it as well. Quasi Daniella, congratulations on the evolution of Momento. GoMomento.com to sign up for the wait list for the Momento Vector Index. We so appreciate your insights and your time and goMomento because you guys have a lot of momentum. I know I said that before, Daniella, but I couldn't resist it. Thank you both so much for joining me on this CUBE conversation. I really appreciate your time. Thanks for having us. Thanks very much, Lisa. My pleasure. We want to thank you for watching this CUBE conversation. Keep it right here for more great content. You're watching the CUBE, the leader in live tech event coverage.