Hi there. My name is Don Boudreau. I'm a professor of economics at George Mason University and a senior fellow at George Mason's Mercatus Center. And I'm here today to talk about Adam Smith and his views on trade and the economy. So let's get started. It's a really good question. What is the role of ideas?  I used to believe that ideas aren't that important. What really matters are the hard facts of institutions, interest group alignments, the statutes written on books. I still think these things matter, but I have done an almost 180 on my view of ideas. Ultimately, I think ideas are at the bottom of everything. We are an idea species. One of the things that distinguishes us is our incredible ability to use the airwaves in order to transfer highly nuanced and detailed ideas from one brain to another. It's one thing that distinguishes us. We don't just send out warning signals. I'm doing that right now. Transferring fairly sophisticated ideas that are in my head through the airwaves to listeners. And so it would be absurd, I think, to conclude that, well, really ideas ultimately don't matter. Of course they matter. You can have the best constitution, the best set of statutes, and if the presumptions that people have, people on the ground, I'm not talking just about leaders, I'm talking about ordinary people. If the presumptions that people have, if the notions that people have about what is right and wrong, what's acceptable or unacceptable, what are the appropriate modes of behavior and what modes of behavior are inappropriate, then you'll get one kind of society compared to if people have different sets of ideas. As many listeners know, I've been very much influenced by the work of the great economic historian, Deirdre McCoskey, and my coming around to understand the importance of ideas started before I really had gotten into McCoskey's work, but her work has driven her home for me. And her explanation of why humanity in the past 200 or so years has, for the first time in history, experienced this what she calls great enrichment, this incredible explosion of wealth, why we today have electricity and can talk and communicate in this manner as opposed to how the vast majority of our ancestors lived, is that ideas changed. In particular, the idea that commerce and trade are not just tolerable activities, but noble activities, activities that bring dignity to people who engage in them. So to the extent that we celebrate and talk favorably about market entrepreneurs, that makes entrepreneurship a more acceptable pursuit. And so as it becomes a more acceptable pursuit, more people become entrepreneurs as we accept that there's no shame in having your business go bankrupt because consumers have changed their tastes and preferences. We become more willing to accept the creative destruction that is inseparable from economic growth. You can't have this industry grow unless this industry over here shrinks because this industry over here needs resources and it's got to get the resources from somewhere. The workers and other materials from somewhere. And so in my view, it has largely been a change of ideas that has changed the course of history to the extent that history will continue to change and history will change because of changes in ideas. And that's why working to promote ideas that you believe are sound is so important. The idea of business is an important business to be in. That sounds self-serving perhaps. I mean, I'm in the idea of business. I've always been in the idea of business. I'll always be in the idea of business. And so I like to think that the idea of business is selling something worthwhile that I'm not peddling snake oil. But I genuinely believe it to be so. The Wealth of Nations is a book filled with great ideas. I think it is highly improbable that all of the economic growth that we've enjoyed since the publication of this book has nothing to do with the ideas in that book. I'm not saying that people often mistake and say, oh, Adam Smith is the inventor of capitalism. That's just nonsense. Adam Smith was describing the world that he saw around. He didn't invent capitalism. He didn't invent self-interest. He didn't invent entrepreneurship. He didn't invent the market. But he did in explaining for the first time in a creative and engaging way how the market works, in explaining that the operation of the market is not a bad thing, but it's a good thing. He helped to change ideas in a way that made acceptance of the market more widespread. And for that, we should thank him. And so my short answer to Tate's question is, yes, ideas matter. Without good ideas, you have a not-good society. With good ideas, you will ultimately get a good society. So it's important to promote good ideas and to debunk bad ones.


that we talked about they're gonna have huge amount of opportunity to raise money at huge valuation so the step-up valuation they got to be valued at least between 300 and 500 million dollars right now so that's kind of my guesstimate I have no insight information to validate I know that their last valuation is roughly around 250 million dollars in that neighborhood so assume that this next step-up valuation was this up around which we heard it was it's got to be north of 300 million if they continue to execute the capital markets are so frothy on the late stage there are billions of dollars of capital under management that are looking for the growth deals and there's a lot of secondary markets you're seeing what Facebook did what Twitter did what LinkedIn did all these companies raise a significant amount of money Zynga another one the winners will raise money so Cloudera does not have a money problem what they have right now is their issue is the opportunity to extend that lead and that is the chess game that armor Mike and the team is going to play and the execution that Kirk done is going to do to me they're in a great position to put the throttle down and just blow Pat continue to throw dust in Hortonworks face and we've been talking about the parallels and the differences all week with Linux and red hat and the big difference that I see John is people just left red hat alone for a decade and they were able to sort of bump along and do their own thing the management of these companies today saw that they're smart I mean Pat Gelsinger who's been on the Cuban number of times I mean essentially he said to us look he didn't say these words but my inference was we were going to let Cloudera try to run away with this so Cloudera is going to see some competition to me that's validation so I agree with your scenario that Cloudera has to keep putting the pedal to the metal you know spending aggressively I think marketing is an area where Cloudera is is is going to really have to put some emphasis because they're going to be up against the oracles and the EMC's and the IBM's of the world so let's do a review quick top stories from Hadoop world is clearly traction in Hadoop the growth to mainstream the amplification of Hadoop tools and the platform positioning has been key with there's peace in the Apache community there's no real mud fighting going on they all know each other the real wars on the differentiators the other big news Dave is that you know the funding is robust Cloudera and got an additional 40 million dollars Excel partners launched the first ever big data fund of a hundred million dollars where they'll invest in startups across the board up and down the stack and just overall great partnerships net apps announcing a deal with Cloudera Hortonworks has got deals in the works a lot of big vendors asked her data is here so just a ton of activity and it's just crazy my last predictions you're going to see other big data funds I mean that's kind of a layup right other people are going to come out and copy what what what Ping Lee's firm Excel partners has done I think it's very important to underscore the relationship between those funds the ecosystem investment and Cloudera's ascendancy that's a very important component and that's why Mike Olson was so excited about it and one of the reasons why he and Ping Lee wanted to come on the cube to talk about that yeah and the and the the other thing that people have been talking about about Hadoop is the competition and we've heard from everyone here at the event including Cloudera Hortonworks and others they love the competition competition is good for everyone it provides validation there's a marketplace there's tools available and essentially no one was really afraid Cloudera is basically hey you know okay competition is good for everyone we're just going to continue to do our business and be number one and push the envelope you know people are okay with the competition so that story is not as hot as people think it's just complete validation that the overall space is going to have rapid growth and so analytics business intelligence tools platform open source everything's growing that's good for everyone and rising tide floats all both what's the number one risk factor in your opinion to Cloudera's success I think if Cloudera drops the ball on how they handle the open source contribution and what's proprietary and if they don't keep an eye on that product and make that clearly an excellent product they could lose their lead a little bit so that's a risk I don't think that's going to be a big risk factor for them so if they kind of botch up the the strategic side is one and two I think Kirk Dunn has talked about it is on the execution side of Cloudera their risk is if they don't go out and build out the the ecosystem mechanics the channel strategy the direct sales and actually knock down those key accounts and continue to get the big whale accounts and proof of concepts and roll in and continue to scale up their support that's a risk fact but you know that's an execution risk there's no market risk at all the market is growing like crazy really the product and then the execution are you know classic risks but I think they're in good shape I don't really see them shaking at all I think all the signals are coming in we just did a remote with Alex Williams about the new management console the new enterprise edition that he just gave a review on we heard from Amar Awadala he's clearly on the open source thing they're on it Kirk Dunn is they got he's got 40 million dollars of fresh financing so I think Cloudera's got it I don't see any red flags yet I think your analysis is right on I think the market risk is low I think the competitive risk which I would put into market risk is low only because Cloudera knows the space better than anybody they know what they don't know in my opinion and I think it comes down to execution risk and look at Horton works right Horton works I got to give them a huge credit those guys came into the marketplace spun out of Yahoo that's like you know walking out of a frozen freeze if you worked at Yahoo it's like oh man it's like they walk on the real world he's like shit this is the world's this is the real world you know so they come in but they've done a good job competing but they're so far behind I mean management consoles alpha they got contribution so they're playing the open source game but they're just so far behind and so their job is to try to get as close to Cloudera as possible everything that they're doing on the messaging is like trying to copy Cloudera so clearly they want to be at least number two and I think if you said to Horton works you're guaranteed a number two position right now in three years if you I'll take that deal


tower there until the buildings were built, but it's going to be then attached to one of the buildings, presumably building 3 or building 4. But that was an area that I were discussing today, just for example, where the condominium documents that's currently drafted don't get very specific about which building it's going to be situated on. So there's a host of issues out there to look at. I was generally looking at the equitable housing issues, and Bruce was looking more broadly. So I think together we'll have a good checklist. That sounds great. I guess let's make it official, maybe, if it might make sense for someone other than Bruce to move, I'll entertain a motion to designate ED as our representative in the negotiations of the condominium documents with Bruce, please, on to the redevelopment board. So seconded. OK, thank you. All in favor? Aye. Great. Thanks, ED. Thank you for waiting around. Thank you for waiting. Thank you for starting my task. You know, the board's changed by four times. Yes. Yeah. That's what it wasn't. Yeah, it's beautiful. All five is alive again, and I went back to look at my old documents. Mike, can I just say a few sentences about what's happening next with the agreements with DHCD in the town? Yeah, please. We had signed agreements, and then when the project stopped and number of units went down, it sort of, we had to do an amendment to that agreement, and it sort of opened up some other issues that we're now trying to close down with DHCD. And I think we're very close to that. So there's going to be an amendment to that agreement that you are going to be a signer, and I would say it will be within the next week. And it's very short. That's an amendment to the regulatory agreement? Is it? Yes. OK. Great. And also, you're in process of getting approval from DHCD under the local initiative program to ensure that the units count. And DHCD is also a signatory to the regulatory agreement. So there's going to be some state involvement. There's a lot, actually. So Bruce will be the board's liaison to communicate with the units? Yes. And to the extent additional negotiation, five hours required, you can step into that, too. Is there anything other than this amendment that's going to come back to the board that we're supposed to be looking at? Well, the board is supposed to approve the kind of document that has to be about, you understand? But there will be something at some point. That's why we want it. That's why we want it to come. OK. And then so that's the other thing. What's the other thing? Sayers have to approve the kind of document. Yes. And what's the schedule for that? Well, it's just a couple of small issues that we're asking them to change. That's how we look at it. It'll take roughly twice as long as you expect. Let's just say something. Did you want to say something? Nope. I mean, other than we look forward to moving through and concluding as quickly as possible, I know you've been very conscientious and so blur about trying to facilitate and, I think, the board understands the challenge that we have with having kind of many things still on the market. And the sales process needs to have these documents going. So while we all want them, these concerns are real and valid and we need to kind of have a balance between the voting rights for affordables and also some of the considerations for the higher and larger condominiums that we're trying to sell. So I think there's going to be a balance of things. I'm sure we'll work through those quickly. But we really do have a joint incentive to work quickly and nimbly through them, and I'm sure we will, because it does affect the marketability and when you're selling something and people ask to see the condominium documents and they're not ready or the more moving pieces there are to the project in general, the more difficult it is just to convert those sales. So we're standing by ready to go, and if there's anything on our side that we need to do to keep people on our side focused, you know, let me know when we look forward to wrapping it up quickly. Great. Well, thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks for making a round. Thanks for waiting around. Okay, if there's possible. Arlington 360 Update is the next thing on the list. Jay, finally, I apologize to you now. Sorry, I never thought that that would go so long, so I apologize. I never got to a point where I felt like if we stopped, we were never going to start again. So it was one of those that... Closing instinct for the board. Yeah, it was there. It was there for the taking, so no problem. Well, I'm just here to really give a general update. There's a couple items that we want to touch base with. I will ask for approval of a minor change that incorporates some design elements for the Vista Park to incorporate some of the historic elements of the hospital that have been preserved. There's some relief, boss relief plaques that were taken off the original hospital, and we've come up with a design to reincorporate them. We've been trying to find a way to incorporate them into the landscaping, and unfortunately, everything that sort of touched the ground with a concrete slab that sort of looks like a gravestone with a cross on it ends up having the wrong connotations. So we have a design that we've worked with like in the past, I have six copies. I might have to share a couple of these. Bruce, I think... I mean, Bruce, share more than I can, yeah. Are you sure? I'm sure. No, but this is fun. So it's just that this is the upper Vista Park. This is the Hattie Sims Park. This is the updated landscaping plan. What you see to the left, where it's a boulder pile, is that's where the parking elements are, the polling parking. This is the ring road around the front of the project with the town hall opposite. And where's the boulder pile? It's in the lane by the front. That's a path that comes into the park from the parking area. And we have what we're calling a boss relief shield monument, which is basically a brick structure that will have the boss reliefs sort of embedded in the brick. And we will have an historic plate, which we're working with the town historian to create, to help us craft the historic summary of them. And he's also looking for an appropriate photograph in the same design motif as the historic planks that are on the granite post that you've just seen before. And we'll be affixing one of those to probably the lower section below one of the units that faces the park, the pathway. The lower section meaning like the park in this area? Yeah, so we'll probably put it right underneath it. Oh, under here. Just a description. That's where the photo and the description will be. Yeah, underneath it. And are there four of these? Yes, there's four of them. There's a nice symmetry. There's one here. There'll be four on the whole line. What was this before? Was this a granite piece? There was not a granite before. Oh, you didn't know? This isn't taking the place of the name. This is just an added feature. Oh, the other one is over here. Yeah, the identity sign, like the name of the granite slab. And this is what? Four? Sorry. Yeah, this is just four sides. Here's a preview. To display what? These, they're 24 by 30 inch. They're cord country molds. Four. We've seen those. They've been up on the cornice of the hospital originally. They were peeled off and saved during the town historian's driveway. Didn't you see those ones? I remember seeing them. And one of the pieces of the cornice? Yeah, they were up in the corners of the cornice, embedded in the brick of the original hospital. Up under the eve. Yes. It's like medallions, almost. Yeah. But shaped different. And they're just cord countries. They're above the cross. It's not a religious form. It's more like a red cross kind of cross. And it's just, there's some symbolism, but it's more of a historic element. There are very few historic artifacts that were incorporated, that were sort of worthy for reconsideration. And I believe the heritage section of our Special Pride requires that we make a priority and incorporate found historic artifacts in the landscape design. So we've been struggling with this design. And I think this is the simplest and most elegant and doesn't have the wrong connotations or possible connotations. So every time you put it on the ground, Yeah, we tried putting mounds up. And we tried sticking them in the flower beds and sticking them, but it ended up looking like gravestones. What about laying them in a sidewalk paving? Well, they're trip hazards. They're trip hazards. Because there are elevations and things like that. And they could look like toppled over gravestones. Yeah. Why the brick? Is it because the buildings were brick? Yes, yes. Yeah, that's the... The existing buildings were brick? We used the same brick, but we're using a different one. For your buildings, but was the original Sims Hospital brick? It was brick. It was brick also. And what's this top piece going to be? Probably a concrete top, which is similar to the toppings of the planters, that we have in the hardscape, the sign of the courtyards. Jake, is this the only location that I've ever used? You said there were four. There are one on each side. Okay, so there's four of the historic elements, and we're putting them in one reconstruction. Right. And then the top part has the history of the... We will have a shield. Just underneath it, probably on the side that faces the pathway, we'll have a plaque that I will come back and show you, because it's written once the description is written by the town historian, and he's looking for an appropriate story photograph to show what they had looked like, that we'd be doing just underneath the front one. It would be the same design as the member of the grant post with the design that will be sprinkled around the top for 25 years of history. And lie down on the bottom. It might be hard to see down there, rather than up above one of them. We could do that. We would just have to make it taller, and it might look a little empty. I don't think you want it. I don't think you want it. I don't think you want it. You don't want anything on the top. What's on the top of it? The four without the... Maybe you could sit on the top. The prefenster. Yeah. But it was half. Did you have something? I'm sitting in there. You can't really see it. It's beautiful. Yeah. So all of the planters in the courtyards have the same brick. Not the previous one. You may want to consider moving it up. And maybe these could all move down a little bit. So you can feel it on the top. Yeah. Just because it'll be so... I think it should be centered, whether it's on the top or the bottom. You can kind of work with it. Yeah. I think the problem with moving it down, with moving the bass relief down, Christine is that it's only going to be on one side. So the other three sides will look pretty odd with the thing not centered on the whole brick. Yeah. So it's sort of the rustification of having a little bit more space at the base. Can you use that grant that you'd like to grant? Yeah. And then move the plaque up to the top. Just under it. So it's right up underneath. So it's surrounding the brick. Just move the plaque up. So no brick border on top of the top. That whole thing isn't a plaque. That's the concrete mold, actually. The plaque, he was just going to put it... No, I know, but this is a special concrete mold, right? Right. All four of those are... Just move it up to just under there. Under the concrete top of the granite top, which matches the granite of the other posts and things that you have. It just looks a little heavy. Yeah. I think if you take one side off it, it'll just look a little nicer. So where would we put the plaque that's underneath it? Well, I put the plaque on the top, but you can also put it underneath it. On the top laying on the top? Well... It might be hard to read, unless you can bring the whole thing down because you're moving them up. You just don't wear it well. Okay. So they put it just below the plaque. Yeah. Now, if you have to bend down, we'll look at it. Really bend down. Well, it's higher than it was going to be. Yeah. Have you included in the budget half a Santa? Is that the part you'd have to go on there during the holiday period? Yeah, I know. Did I? No, actually. Don't lay your knees. You have to do the legs going head first. You put it right there. It's like the chimney for the big sistine underneath it. Exactly. That's the next thing you're going to come in with is the exhaust pipe in the middle of this. We'll get a Michelangelo on it. It's fan-in-fan. We'll just just bring the top black and then the right movement. Perfect. What about if we center them on the three sides but then on the one face? We do that on the face and the path. Okay. Why not just do it on all the window now? Yeah. We're only going to have one plaque though. Oh, I know. I'm just saying this is one of the area beds. Yep. Just put it right up to the top of the thing. Is it that or is it? How about from the side? How much relief does that thing have so that its trip has a... An inch. An inch so the cap should also... Is the cap going to be flush with the brick? The cap would overhang. A little bit. A little bit overhang then. It's a chunky thing if you can make it thinner at the same time this way. Yeah, it seems so big. It's chunky. It's really... Yeah, okay. You got it. It seems out of scale with even being outside to the sides. Yeah. Yeah, it's a little more relief. I mean an arrow. An arrow. Yeah, and drop the thing up to the top so you're not seeing it surrounded like a window in a big chunky thing that looks like a locker. Got it. Got it.  Yeah. In nice key spots. I know. That usually works so much better. Because it's such a... I understand you're concerned then. Yeah. It's... I mean... It's... Yeah. It's tough. It's just structural issues. It's one of the garage walls, brick walls. They're already built. Yeah. There's no walls around the park. I was going to ask that where it could be incorporated into it. That's nobody had thought but when they get into the design... Or trunks of walls, even. You think this is curving around it. It's not all... Oh, right here. It's curving. And there's a fence in it. And there's a fence in it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, it's been a struggle with contrary, maybe, six different concepts. How thick is it? They're... three inches thick, maybe. So when you set them in to a mortar bed, it can be flush. Yeah. Right. And you've looked at, like, giving them each their own grounding. Like, not in the ground, but on something else. Yeah. They look like gravestones. On a different structure. No matter what you put them on, they look like... Yeah. I mean, they're 35, 24. Yeah. They're in the ground sticking out. Mm-hmm. Light in the ground. Looks like a tomb. Mm-hmm. Even if you put it on something that was very ungravestone-like, like something with color in the base or... It looks like... Something a different shape, like that a normal gravestone base would be. Yeah. We've tried it. We've tried it with stone dust. We've tried it with a planting bed. It's not a planting bed. But, like, raising it on something that is a little bit more unusual. I don't know what. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. It's a lot of explanation if you did that, though. I mean, it's already a lot of explanation. Plus, if you did that, you'd need a clack first. You'd need four clackers, right? Yeah. Which, yeah, it was really the issue. I know what I'm saying.  You could have one clack and have four set. You could have one of them and do it prominently. You've looked at it again. I mean, it just... No matter what, it looks like a gravestone. It looks like some kind of... I mean, if you put four of them on different heights of things in the same landscape area with one clack, something like that. This thing is really... I'm not pleasant looking. At the risk of saying something really radical and no one was in the special program, are we better off without it? Are we... We've been struggling to try to do it, but is it a force? And I hear all the things you're saying. We've been trying for that creative idea, but we also don't want to destroy them, or alter them. And it's just a... You can sculpturally do it. It should be mounted in a wall in the base of a parking group. You know, some wall. Just mount it in there and you just find them. That's what they should be. One of the brick walls somewhere. But the public space, they should be in a public space. Well, that's all public where you're driving around. It's like a taming wall. Oh, man. The massive wall that could be a real wall. Out there. That's two... Well, that was thinking on the top of that wall, but this is a curb and then there's a fence. Up around the... Yeah, it's just... We've talked about that. We've talked about doing that in the stairways. No, later. That was another place, but those are more private. More private.  And these need to be... This is historic, right? So it needs to be... There's a story behind it. Do you need to have... I guess a tripping hazard is a tripping hazard no matter where it is. You've got these two benches here, two benches here and two benches here, right? You've got these benches. That needs to be clear in between the two benches. Is it that? Yeah, tripping hazard is only in your pathway. Your major pathway. If you brought the benches out just a little bit and you just put them down in the ground, right in between those two benches. In between them laid? No? I can say no. I don't... No, no, no. It goes back to that too. Oh, you think that even looks like a tombstone? It looks like... In between two benches. That's where my dog's buried. It's too bad you don't have an image of Wonder Show. You don't have it in your file.  Actually, you don't want to dig with the sister of his but a former dog. I just don't want to deal with my dog died and I lump him and can we put him in the park? I guess I was thinking if it was in between the benches it would have less... It would have less looking like a... Yeah, no, it wouldn't have looked less that way. It still would be a tripping hazard whether it's technically one or not in a public park you're protected for tripping hazard. It just doesn't look better. It doesn't really accomplish what we're trying to do. It was in an arch, right? Originally? No, they originally were in the corners up above the cornice up in the corners just embedded in the concrete.  You need to create a thing of a sod and put the mask into it. Yeah, can you make it into a scale model of the old of the old samples hospital and we don't have to be making... With the right samplers? It'll have to be big enough to... You could make a gateway into the park. I'm kind of with Bruce. I think this is forcing an issue because I would say we are all fatigued with this but the town historian thinks this is good and, you know... I had a great deal of respect from the town historian. I will say but the amateur design person in me doesn't find it very appealing. I mean it just to me and I hear what Andy's saying making slender taper but we're still trying to you know, pretty up something that's just inherently not very attractive. Maybe if it wasn't in a brick structure like this But I think I'm going with Bruce I mean it's just if you're going to have it it's just a big block. Right in your garden, curiosity people are going to go, what is it? It wants to be built into some entry posts or something like that. Exactly, like a ballard in the entries. Not just sitting in the middle of it. One could be an H ballard and one of them has an interpretive element or something. Let me try one of the other things. What if you put them just side by side by side without any brick? Is it like little tombstones? No, no. Make the box out of them. I guess it would look a little like a sarcophagus. Well maybe, what about this? What if we... Set it into a concrete color I don't quite care A narrow, thin, concrete color Doesn't that work better? Yeah, what would? Pour it into a concrete color like set one on each side like you said. An obelisk. An obelisk. At least 18 feet out. And that you could put somewhere in the landscape. And if there's four of them set into a different pillar they wouldn't look like a tombstone. Because they wouldn't have the shape like this is in the special permit, right? That's why it's coming back. Isn't there something about special permit? Is it that you have to try to incorporate storage found objects into the landscape? Which usually isn't this hard. No, this is the only thing that was there so we're trying to make it work and at times it has felt like we're trying to specify a quarter peg in a round hole which is a rather large square peg. What's your time frame? Well, we need to order this. We're getting ready for landscaping to be fully mobilized for the park since September so we have to buy this. Could it possibly wait until September 9th agenda for members? Because in the meantime Jake could potentially provide to the board an electronic file, a photograph of the cross or one of them and then the board could further consider whether Mike's idea of putting them between the benches in these four locations is not out of the realm of aesthetic possibility but also still to give a little further consideration to potentially improving the appeal of what you have presented just to try to it would postpone the decision a little more to be honest with you just really honest we don't have capacity or time for any of this green green it's like if you want this let's do it I hate to be so cut and dry but we have too many things to do with too much stuff happening to kind of keep this going just realistically so we want to make the board happy this is a detail that we want to execute well we want it to be something we're all proud of this is we can come back after we're done and say we'll try to do this later but in the construction sequence with installation planting and building foundations and putting floodings in and all that stuff the time to do that is in the sequence with when we're doing everything and unfortunately this has lagged behind we've been struggling with this we've had many different iterations of this and we're here but we need to make a decision and we're happy to incorporate the changes that Andy has said but I can't design something one of these things you get to town historian to agree with which one is the best and execute everything else we have to do can it be delayed? yeah but we're going to build this then afterwards so we're going to put up our big foundation but specifically the castings it's just the irrigation lines are all going to be in you know we're going to have finished plantings that ought to be planted in a certain timeframe from a seasonal perspective and it just we just need to simplify and narrow what we're doing and move forward and unfortunately there's urgency that we have I'm trying to be respectful of what we're acting like we just got to make a call it'd be easier if we had a picture of one of them you kind of picture it into this the boss relief so really September 9th you can't wait for that up and down on Andy's things I guess two things come to mind I truly I must admit I'm ambivalent towards this either way I don't think it necessarily adds anything I mean it's nice that you know maybe it's nice that we wanted to save those things but in the end I'm not sure Billy can we convince the historian to hold off on it well I think but do we have to convince the historian I don't know we can do a one he's been helpful how heartbroken would he be I guess it's a question I hate to lose them but maybe there's a better place for them than this if we had to vote on this I would vote now yeah it's a pretty easy I I'm very sensitive Jake to how much work you put into this and it is I think a little detail and you've been dealing with like major major factors and this is I don't want Jeff over this personally it's not working for me and I think it actually detracts from what I understand that this department looked like so I would say no and I don't my own personal view is I think that we could the project's going to succeed without this fine and it doesn't it doesn't really sing out like it has that great amount of historical relevance to me I'm not going to look at that and go oh yeah that was the piece of the hospital that used to be here so I agree how does the historian feel about the pieces well he thinks it's the one architectural piece from the buildings it's sort of the physical legacy from what was there to what it is now I think he feels really good about the conscientiousness of the historic plaques that we are doing on the site and he's seen a few of the other designs that didn't get this far let me let me ask you one last question on this thing and I'm only bringing it up are they all the same yeah so another idea to kind of make it more elegant would be just to have it two-sided yeah and have it narrow I mean yeah and have it just be a little more elegant and maybe it works you see it from both directions it's perfectly clear they have one on each side and it'll feel more like your other plaques you gotta go redesign it I would eliminate it I don't know I like that suggestion I kind of feel like the historian that it's part of that site and it's the one thing that you have designer to go in and execute it is your landscape architect designs yeah so I mean if the board wants to get on that direction and wants to authorize someone to be able to approve it so we can get this done this way that would be the way to do it and if the board is not happy with it and doesn't feel like a strong sense of the paper we'd be really proud of this and this is accomplishing what we want for this department to be you know I think it's the board what I can say is that we've really worked on this for a long time and tried to you know get to a different scenario so this is sort of the best idea that we've had to make it more elegant that would be accomplished if we did it two-sided and narrow or structure with a thinner cap that might be more elegant although I'm not sure that that might still dominate one of the nice great planet name that we have you know right at the entryway that's what I don't like about it it's enough stuff we have the post and we have the block and this is just randomly placed in there it wouldn't have to be here if you did it two-sided you could put it somewhere else see and I guess that's whatever you could put it in the landscape remind me what your other signs are like what they're mounted on six inch granite post just six inch okay it's very narrow let's think it was wider and there's one that's a rough block down here with a plaque in it they're all kind of natural nice aesthetic and this is just coming out of like you bought it somewhere so where else can these go you have two choices you either assign somebody to work with them to reduce it or keep it for days or we vote to eliminate it and see if the historian can find another place to do it we can find it in terms of the museum you know they look great in this driveway but he has a wall to lift him up again in that particular area so we'll enforce a delay in this thing if you really want to come back I don't think this works I don't think that's worthy of being the first thing to see coming into this department even two-sided you know what I'm saying you got this nice entry wave here that's what I was saying it could be somewhere else somewhere else in the landscape instead of right along the entry in the grass maybe if it were kind of mixed in and it was two-sided it might not be so dominant this is really dominant maybe two-sided between these benches right here or right here in the landscape somewhere there so it literally looks like I was just trying to draw what you're seeing you put it in the ground just tilt it up it looks like a little you want to do that that's who I wanted to do but I could see it in that just by the thing in here somewhere that's the kind of scale you want get it down on the ground like you're saying get it down low don't make a big block out of it even between these benches here it's a trip hazard wow it would look like that as the cross sticks out an inch it looks like a vulture and then which is what you have with gravestones like that is when you have them flat and you have the acid from the rain sort of sits on things and the concrete is very porous so you get expansion and contraction so that's why you don't crack it'll absorb water and freeze and crack either then it'll really look like this some moss will grow on it okay so I should have eliminated I don't think it's adding to the structure I don't think we have to vote because the vote would be to include it not to exclude it because no you can reject it you can reject this concept okay consider it rejected okay okay you know in all honesty in all due respect to the town of scoring especially on this project this park is in the right place it's a nice idea but it just detracts from the park I don't want to I'm not trying to throw him he was working with us trying to come on yeah it's hard to you know oh and this is what happened so this is what we designed and he said that's what I asked for looks okay to me he may be relieved not to use it it might be better to have some of these in the park but you know what we will do is keep an open mind for where we could put these things yeah all of a sudden it comes to us you know do keep an open mind like you know just using not using all four just one maybe in between two benches let's get a friend to build them as the park and we'll see if we can make it work send us the image though this is too nice we can try to help you if he sends us the image we can also have it in the background we're gonna move on as we move forward yeah okay so the direction I have was to give you an update on the forest management plan yeah so as you recall that was an LDA requirement that had been done by July of last year which was a couple months behind that schedule but it's been done for over a year now and we've circulated it to the Land Trust in Hong Kong to make amendments to the plans and there was dissatisfaction with some of the details of the forest management plan and members of Kong Kong have met with an emerging friends group to help truth as you recall it's a collection of people from different backgrounds but including the neighborhood and there seems to be an agreement amongst the other parties as to what actually to modify in the forest management plan so we've been saying to Kong Kong this is the effects the management principles that are down the road that are not necessarily things that we've created in these endowments to help support financially the ongoing transformation and maintenance in the open space there's priorities, there's maintenance standards as you know from the management plan that also draw on those principles and there seems to be a disagreement that I don't necessarily totally understand between members of the Land Trust Kong Kong and the new friends group I think it has more to do with voting and it has control over what decisions and so the amendments there was a little one pager that was modifying the forest management plan just as a coda that has been drafted but not officially endorsed and we've been waiting for Kong Kong to sign off on this and the Land Trust to sign off on it and we keep asking them to do it and there's an ongoing debate and they're not meeting until September so this is one of those things where it doesn't really necessarily affect us directly we want to do the right thing keeping these things done, we have a clear obligation in the LDA to have this completed we've circulated a draft of it you know on one hand we would like to complete it so we aren't thinking about it let's take draft off of this and ask the forest management the person who dropped it who was recommended by these parties to do it, to just give us what you got and if there's some amendments or people want to change it later we'll leave that to the future groups to decide whether part of us that wants to do that and part of us wants to make everybody happy and have them give us whatever changes that are necessary so is it your understanding that the plan is now finished because that's my understanding that it's finished and it's gone or it's on its way to the CONCOM and they will be voting on it at their September 5th meeting that's my understanding however I don't believe that there's a clear consensus as to whether it will be approved or whether it will be approved in the context of the other elements of voting rights I think it comes down to the neighborhood feeling like they want to have a say in the management and there are folks that don't necessarily agree with that so it's really the neighborhood is a general public basically so we want to facilitate that, we want to bring people together we want everybody to have clear definition of the mechanics of how the system can be managed we think that the management plan and the conservation documents really outline how that's going to work and if you read I think there also may be some anxiety because people haven't seen the final landscaping in place and they don't see how the open space is being finalized and they see the shelter portion of the project with the exposed you know, there's just you know, is it done, it doesn't feel done you know, we sign off on it wait, this is our last chance to have a say in changing things if we need it it feels a little bit like that I don't know if it's just anxiety, I don't know if it's psychological but we've been asking and asking and asking and we keep being told by the next ARB meeting we'll have it finalized so this is just one of those things it's not rocket science it's not a big issue it's just kind of getting it closed out it's taking it one time we would like to have this done because it is the piece of CR documents and when we're selling units people are asking for the kind of docs they're asking for all these regulatory documents just to understand what they're buying into they see forest management it's like one of the little detail things that we just don't have but it's not helpful from our perspective to keep it as a well made if there's a new thing but it's coming and you know it's just another challenge so that's the update we're working on okay and you're keeping communication with Carol so that if the board can help in any way or you know I'm happy to step up on that one the only thing I can think of that might help through decision making processes to maybe invite at a particular date someone to ask that they finalize I don't know can we say that our expectation, the board's expectation Christine at this point since you've got your ear closer to the ground there and any of us on this one is that there will be a vote on September 5th which would be tight what is September 5th that's a Thursday and our agenda yeah the problem is our agenda maybe we could make it an agenda item we'll make it an agenda item but you know maybe near the end of the meeting so that way if we have to drop it it'll be at the end that would be good can the board designate someone to accept it to accept the force management plan at that meeting or before that meeting just be empowered to finalize and accept well I think that's not something we do right now I think we would do it at the September 9th meeting let's cross that bridge at the September 9th meeting if we're not in a position on September I mean if you're waiting until September 5th anyway just trying to sell units I know I know you had said the difference is August 22nd and September 9th I guess I would I would think about it but it's not, it's September 5th to September 9th I guess what I'm saying is there a way to accept the force management plan of what's been drafted and then have been away to quickly do whatever amendment people want to do if the front line has a change to it they want to adapt the code because then when something's done we've met our obligations for the LDA we just want everybody to have a decision I should know more than I do on this so what's the interaction between the LDA and the force management plan and who has the okay on the force management plan I guess I'm coming from a lack of knowledge on this that I should have, I realize but I don't the the land trust has a role in it a signature so basically the management plan for the permanent conservation goes to a tribe already agreeing between the condominium association the land trust and the concoct and so but that's while the management plan is signed it doesn't go into effect until the permanent conservation restriction is placed on the property which happens after the project and our challenges is that the shelter is not done and some of their land is incorporated in that so we have to wait for them to be done from a timing perspective so this is kind of I would characterize this and others may not but I would characterize it as an ARV jurisdiction but there's a courtesy because these other groups will be engaged in the management of it later so there's sort of a courtesy that we would have with them all understand what the force management plan is so that the parties are in fall the the neighborhood groups have said a say in this management and I think there are some elements that some people agree with that and others don't and I think that's where the disagreement is but the way that it's said there was a disagreement on what the force management plan was for a while also how it was written people weren't happy with how it had been written and it was being rewritten but the types of changes how would you describe the types of changes it was identifying preferential species of trees there are some technical things it was mostly technical stuff about how the land would be managed so it gets approved by us and it's been rewritten by different parts I'm just trying to figure out what the so we approve it as an exhibit to the LDA but we're not a signatory to it because that's being signed by the conservation commission by the trust of the it's for the future management of the land that really happens when the project is over and we've signed the CR documents and all of the open spaces are turned over to this tribe party management which is why the tribe party should have the biggest role at it because they're the ones that have to live with it and I don't want to get in a jurisdictional with concom or the land trust I think we'll wait until our decision because we're going to be managing this but it's really your comment so why don't you review it Christine and we recommend that they sign it yeah and then we can only do what we can do with that I mean if we approve it we can review it and approve it based on conditions that we come from the concom and the LDA but then we're approving we're not, we're only approving it at a point in time I mean after that happens we don't have anything else to do with it I don't think we see no problem it complies with what we expect you're just ready for you to sign yeah and if you choose to change it after we've approved it then that's on you I think well if they have an amendment we can also need to approve the amendment if they want to add a condition or change something for all time well it's still part of the special permanent management program if we sign off and say yes we're happy with the management plan go sign it and they sign it and six months later someone says okay I want to amend that and here's how we want to amend it do they come back here for us to review it boy that's not like a good plan well just until it becomes the permanent no that's what I would think once it gets merged into the CR it's out of our hands wouldn't it be I think so it's just for this time realistically that makes sense until it's in the CR so if six months from now if it's not permanent yet yeah they would have to come back say we think this is approvable we want you to sign it they don't sign it though you guys just accept it okay nobody signs it nobody signs it there's no signature there's no signature but if there's amendments to it I think the board should consider that if in maybe your criteria is that the three parties that will be the future management have to agree that those amendments are good amendments I don't think anyone has any debate about what technically is a good thing to add or not well the concom might have some concom they need to listen to that that's why they're reviewing it so for us as developers we're like well as long as concom is happy we're happy it's this future stuff that's all you make good equalizing and members of the concom took it hand in writing it along with members of the ALT but the concom works as a board so that one member can't say okay it's approved by the concom they have designated one person so I think we're a little bit lost as a wrong word but I think we need to get our ducks in a row and have a plan for the next meeting I don't think that we can have that plan for right now and I think that the September 5th vote coming up I don't have the plan I have an old draft but there's a new draft we can send you the code from concom but you have to that's the same plan well no I actually spoke with Brian and Kathy this morning we were out at your site looking at the marketing trailer site that's going to come up later I think in another meeting we'll bring that up later but they both said that it's being finished today and being sent to the concom I believe that was and that the concom was going to be reviewing it on the 5th and I asked them to send it to me also so I think I did so I can review that as soon as I get it and at the next we can put it on the agenda for the next meeting I also would ask that whatever is going to the concom on the 5th get sent to us in our Wednesday packet that week so that we can whether or not they approve it we'll be sending it in our package to look at so we can ask Brian to send it to us I'll just ask him to get me for you let's just put it on the agenda and it's going to be the draft plan it's going to be the final plan unless they get their endorsement together it just gives them a deadline I see what you're saying they've told you that so that's I think we're going to be able to do anything tonight and what we can do is we can prepare for the next one and get them to set that deadline we're going to submit it and you guys are going to review it but most probably you're probably going to accept it unless they have your code or write notifications you're going to have and we'll so whatever it is that they're going to take a look at and with amendments and everything else that's what we'd like to see that week before their meeting on the FAST right they want things to kick a little bit a lot we really do I know there's a lot of things we want to keep things moving we're with you I know and then just again on the kind of minion documents very valid points that were raised about the voting there's different perspectives that we should we'll have to bridge and balance we'll do that but just before we there's a balance we'll go through that okay well are there any questions from a schedule perspective yeah how are things moving on sales it's been challenging we're going through a process a certificate of occupancy process for safety and access on the site for the public with the building inspector and the building department and have been told that not to show or arrange for buyers to come in and look at their units and that's very difficult people just aren't committed to PNS unless they walk into the units and really see them so we are working on that we understand the building department's concerns about safety and a lot of that will be elated with the first TC of O because there's a whole access and fencing off of the lineation between the construction side and the open side things are coming together the power lines are going down we're hoping to remove the power lines the next week or so the cell tower is supposed to be done offsite by the end of the month there's been a lot of cleanup we're now in the signage down at the bottom of the road are coming along we've delineated the fencing around the shelter site so it's migrated to be just on their side of Sims Road and some of the construction fencing that's along that edge we're taking down and beginning the replanting with the buffer zone and executing that and then we're delineating the portion of the construction site to the left of Sims Road now and Sims Circle coming together to the left hand side will be delineated from that point to where the turnaround is at the top of the site and that will become a construction zone and then the landscape will be coming around the front of the buildings and coming up to the front town so it's all coming together to start the construction are the two parks graded and getting ready to receive? as soon as the power lines are down we're going to be trying to remove the site construction office at the lower-vista part and so that's the final sort of grading that happens and then once the poles are down we will use that site as staging for construction initially the lower-vista part will be the last landscape thing to be backed out of the site because we have nowhere else to put anything so but we're expecting to be done with that by the end of October so everything we planned is issued? it's pretty dynamic up there and I again encourage people to come look at it because you understand it more when you see it we also are taking down the mock-ups we're using them to document but we're moving them just to prepare for the landscaping but the sidewalk the curves are now in it gives definition we'd be done the final fencing along the vista circle side of the site going out to Woodside Land and we'll be done soon for that section so we get some of the grading done so it's all starting to transform much more every day into a more of a finished look and experience on the exterior the town homes that are for sale once those garage doors go up I think it's really going to change I think that's supposed to be happening it's already this week and the landscaping in front of those town homes is really coming together with the street lights installed and really the activation of the power is happening so yeah a lot of things are happening we had a pipe burst at 3 o'clock this morning and it surrounded 12 units finished units they were already punched out so you know you get back up and you fix the problem but you know the sprinklers burst so yeah it's unfortunate but the pool deck is coming together the entry plaza sequence is really shaping up nicely the lobby was done I think it damaged a little bit but we're the leasing offices so you really get a sense of the finish of the tilework and the interior finishes and things like that so any units look at the boiler views look really good so can we come up at any time Thursdays are the best from a logistic perspective but Friday's work Monday's are also big but you know any time that works I know it's usually going to be either early in the morning or later and everybody has their name that we've done and Andrew would enjoy doing the first door it's pretty exciting how about the assisted living how far are they they're picking up speed they had roof trusses delivered so they're topping up quickly and what's their schedule for completion they should be in February so we're going to still be looking at probably more of a spring planting so their slope stabilization won't happen until the spring whatever they're going to do on that back roof truss that's one of the issues we want to talk about you know like I said to Brian I know that there's anxiety about that there's a plan that was approved that's the standard the plan that was approved for the roof truss slope just overall including all of the lines except for that slope we had questions about that pocket planting of the lines that was going to happen and they never came back with a resolution I believe that's the way we left it I certainly had questions about their detail I think the shelter view is that there's a landscape plan that was approved and they have to do it there's a detail that probably is not going to work I think I think the depth of the the riprap is deeper than they had anticipated oh even deeper than what was on the drawing yes so I think that that needs to be addressed what we'd like to see is the same bulged blanket with seating that they're doing on the upper slope but I think I described once to everybody that way the rock would be covered with a layer of natural material so what I would do what I have in the English shelter is saying I think we need to address this and go into that detail do we need to call them back to look at that we can do that let's see what happens the next month they've been very focused on the tight coordination it's a very difficult site for them to build on and the coordination was getting our utilities up hospital road was keeping the upper site accessible with them needing to have drill it to deliveries and they've also had a couple instances of other trucks that had to go up and turn around and they can't turn around and go over and smash them when we coordinate we get through it and we get it done and it's not till spring that that's happening but the sooner it gets delineated the better and I know that Concom is looking at that and tracking that and it will be changing from what it looks like now so let's keep it as an issue but I think at 11 o'clock I think we're pretty much I think once they see the other I agree so I think we'll take a motion to sorry we do have two more things we'll postpone both of them until the next meeting motion to adjourn go ahead Andrew you can second it all in favor


We just made three versions of those tiny little houses that you see on Pinterest. And we'll show you how we did it right now. What is up? Welcome back. Do you like to do it, build or make it? We do too. And we do it every week. This week we're making some tiny houses. We got a request to do some tiny houses. So we're gonna make some. These are those cute little tiny houses. You've probably seen them was growing through Pinterest because that's where I saw them. They usually sit on like an entryway table or on a mantel. Maybe on a desk.  They just stand on their own. Looks like a little city. You know, you've seen them. You've seen them around. So we're gonna give you three versions. A good, better, best. You guys seem to like that the last three times we did it. So we're doing it again. Tiny House version number one. We're going a super simple, crazy easy. Yes. This is the one with the least amount of detail. We're just going to simply use a board. Here we have a 2x3, a 2x4, and what is that? 2x6. Alright. I don't know what that is. I'll measure it here in a second. Okay. And a 2x6. And all we're gonna do is put a little roof on them. So cut them to the proper height and then cut little starting from the center. Cut some angles. Doesn't have to be perfect. You don't even have to know exactly what the angle measurement is. Just cut a cute little roof on it. Cute little roof. Super rustic. And I'm gonna make all of my cuts with pocket saw. Now we're gonna throw some sandpaper all over them. Kind of rough them up, round them up like they've been tossed around for a while. Like they've been lived in. Back with our blocks. All rounded off. Looking a little rustic, a little tumbled. But uh lived in. Lived in. That's right. Now we're gonna give them a paint job. But it's not gonna be a good looking paint job. Yeah. We're just gonna slap a coat of paint on them. Slap some paint on it. Alright. So these two are in white. This one is in this Andy Sloan's French linen. French linen.  Back with our stencils. I made that SVG. I think we bought that SVG and I stole that SVG. What? I think they're pretty dry. Stencils on. Now we're just gonna swap. Gonna flip the colors. Quick little thin, super thin layer. Sorry babe. It's okay. A mod podge. And then you don't let it dry. You just come right in. I also heard you can use the base coat. We'll try it. We'll try the base coat. Yeah. A thin layer of the base coat. Yeah. And then your top coat. So we're gonna try that one. Got some tips. Barely dry. Thin coat. So as they're painted we're just going to peel back the vinyl now. You don't have to wait for that paint to dry. Maybe just a minute or two. But the more it dries the more likely it'll peel the paint when you peel the stencil. So we try to go against the green. The feet didn't come out. So I'm drying them back on. I think so. Yeah. Alright. What do you guys think? This is super simple. Some scrap wood, some paint, a little stencil. I think they're so cute. They're, oh I almost knocked it over. They're adorable. And our little birds here. We have six kids. So that's six little birdies. And me and Garrett. Isn't that adorable? I love it. I love it. Tiny houses number two. Well they're not so tiny now. We're gonna use a 1 by 10 and a 1 by 8. Again some scraps. And then some 1 by 2 scraps for a little frame around it. I will say I envisioned something more like a 1 by 4 and a 1 by 6. But that's too tiny. Yeah. Tiny houses are gonna be a little bit less tiny than I thought. They're gonna be just the right size. Alright we're gonna cut a little roof into each of these boards. Put a little 45 in each of these. I'm gonna make all my cuts with my pocket saw. You guys just saw that one. Same joke. Same idea. Simple little cuts already looking like a house. Now we're just gonna paint the backs and stain the frames. All my little frame pieces. I'm gonna stain the frames in jacobine. And we're going to paint the little houses in this anti-slown country gray. Time for the stencils. Again I just found these SVGs on Etsy. Design Bundles. One of those. I'll leave the link down below. Design Bundles. Was it Design Bundles? Yeah. It was Design Bundles. I'll leave the link down below. Did you guys know that we hit 30,000 subscribers? Whoop whoop. Thank you guys. That means a lot to us. And because of that we're gonna do a live stream. And then we're gonna do a special live stream for our patrons over there on Patreon. Well I guess that's what it would be. Yeah. It'll be our first live stream. We've never done that before. Never done it. Have to do some research. I don't even know how to do a live stream. A little nervous. I don't usually have troubles with something to say. I usually have plenty to say. But I'm a little worried maybe I won't. So you guys are gonna have to comment and interact with us. Quick little thin coat, a base coat. It worked out well. I'm gonna do it again. Already have the paint. Already have the brush. We just hit it with the heat gun just a little bit. Take the big moisture out. Whatever big moisture means. Yeah. So what are you thinking? What are you gonna do? You gotta put the uh... Oh yeah, overzealous. You gotta put the black down there. Alright. Here you go. Against the green. Looking cute already, huh? Don't even have a frame on them yet. Don't even look lived in. So we're gonna take that little frame that we made and we're gonna glue it and tag it down with a one inch bread. Not the nail, not the guy.  Version two, a little more intricate, a little more detailed. What do you think? Not too shabby, some more scrap wood. Alright, not too bad. Version number three. Again with some scrap wood, we have some scrap plywood laying around. We had two pieces. So we're gonna cut again, cut a little roof in this piece, a roof in this piece, and then we're gonna make a frame. So we got to make all of our cuts, but I can't use the pocket saw on this one. For this one we're gonna use the jigsaw. So I'm gonna find the center, I'm gonna draw up my lines, and then I'm gonna see if I can follow it with the jigsaw. Wish me luck. That's what I just did. It's not funny, Kim. He's the worst. I am the worst. I might have to help with that. Maybe she'll make the cuts. Yeah, he doesn't have the steadiest hand when it comes to that jigsaw. I do not. I am not a sawsman. Sawsman, he always uses the made-up term. Is it made up? I think it is. Is it made up? Check me, fat check me.  Everything's a little bit bigger. Maybe I should have called it big, bigger, and biggest. Yeah. Yes. The next size will not be a regular size house. We're stopping at this size. Now it's time for paint and stain. Back to the painting and the staining. Alright, well this dries. We're gonna jump over to the glue forge and cut out our pop. Time to assemble it. We're gonna glue this piece together using this little house. Now we're gonna take it with a one-inch bread, the nail, not the gallon. Now we've got to add the little pop. Take that thing out of the glue for my pieces.  Glue it down. Using that clear gold ray with glue again. Bad news though, I can't pick it up and show it to you yet. We're gonna have to let it dry. So we'll five minutes. That'll do it. Five minutes. Five minutes. The next day. Alright, what do you guys think? What do you think about our tiny little houses? Can you see them? Can you see them from there? Here, I'll hold it up. Things are tiny, aren't they? As usual, they just get bigger and bigger when we start to execute. In my head, there were three sets of small houses. Oh, in my head, they got bigger each step. So it worked out. We kind of struggled with this last one. We did. We really didn't know what to do. So, you know, we posted on social media that we felt like it was too plain. What could we do? Somebody said a sun and a tree. We like the tree idea. So I threw some birds in there. Tie it back to this one over here. Yeah. Tie it back. But it still feels to me like it's missing a little something. It isn't exactly what I envisioned in my head. So it is a completed project, but not exactly what I was looking for. Not enough pizzazz. If you had seen it before, the tree wasn't there and it was just the home sign and the teal background, which I liked the pop of color. But then that was it. It was just a pop of color. A giant pop of color. Like a pop and fizzle. So I didn't know what else to put in there. So maybe you can give me your thoughts on what you would have put in there or how you might have dressed it up because I was struggling. How can we just finish it from here? I don't know. I like it, but it's not my favorite. I think the middle ones are my favorite. Yeah, these are cute. And I like how they kind of go together. It says welcome to our beautiful chaos. Stay awhile. I thought that was really cute. And then these little guys over here are really cute as well. You can't probably see the detail, but this little window with the cat sitting in it watching the birds. So cute. So adorable. So I got to stare at the top of this one. We'll see you next week where we'll do it. Build it and make it again. Everybody. Everybody get in here. Come on. Get in here, everybody. Come now. Hey, you. You want it straightened up. You want in? Better get in here.


Okay. Great. Hello, everyone. Thanks for being here. It's a real pleasure to be here, be here in person. My name is Charles Echoll. I work at Cisco. I'm in our Global Technology Standards Group. Sorry, I obviously work a lot with standards. But also, partly because I'm passionate about open source, but also because as many of you probably see, there's a lot of ties between standards and open source, and we've heard some talks about that. Here this week, and so I deal a lot with open source, and there's a lot of passionate people doing quite a lot of good things with open source inside of Cisco. This talk is a little bit about how GitHub really empowered and enabled this community of sometimes different siloed groups, not siloed intentionally, they just had different things they were working on and ways about going and open sourcing things. I think in that excitement, and using GitHub as a great tool for sharing code, the way that happened organically within Cisco, and some lessons that I learned and that others learned from that, and some improvements we've made. So just wanted to share some of that with you, and hopefully get some help with ideas for good improvements that are still easy for us to make on top of what we've done. So I'll start by talking a little bit about our goal and then the reality of what happened as we started using GitHub, and then I'll dive into a bit more detail of our usage of GitHub, the various functionality in it, and how we made use of it, and things we learned along the way that maybe we hadn't anticipated or where we thought, wow, we could do a little better here. Then I'll just close with some next steps because we've certainly made some improvements, but there's a lot left to do. So just very simply, what we really wanted was a way to collaborate on code with the entire developer community that was involved with Cisco products, with our APIs. Primarily we were thinking of open source, but as you'll see it didn't even necessarily need to be open source. But this collaboration with developers was really the goal, and many different teams had that in mind. What ended up happening partly because of the ease of use and availability of GitHub was many groups went often just started doing this on their own, which in some ways was fantastic. But it also resulted in literally dozens of Cisco GitHub orgs, different variations, different groups of Cisco. They're all legitimate meaning that at least there were dozens that were legitimate, maybe there are some that weren't. But quite often there wasn't a description of why did this GitHub org even exist. Some of these had a lot of very, very good projects in them. Others started and stopped, someone had an idea and then lost interest, and they were just dormant. Many of the repos that were out there didn't have a license, and I think maybe the worst thing was, it often was not clear at all who to contact if you had a question or wanted to find out more. Even for me, working within Cisco, I often didn't know who to talk to, who set up this GitHub org, I don't know. So now I'm going to start by just looking at orgs and repos. First thing, a GitHub organization. I'm sure you're all familiar with this. We see it with open source projects a lot. A GitHub organization just provides a really convenient way for a group of people to collaborate on a set of projects on a set of repos. You have some owners who can set things up in a certain way, there's a lot of flexibility there. I think the key thing here was that it's free. For an unlimited number of collaborators working on an unlimited number of public repos, and that in itself was just very empowering, and that's why so many people went off and did this. Because they could, it was free, it was easy, and they were often running. So the problem though was we had this organic kind of mismatch of things. So we started to look at it and it was confusing to us. We figured it's certainly confusing to our developer community. So we started thinking about what are we going to do to make this better and one thought was, well, we have a dozen of orgs, but should there really just be one GitHub org for all of Cisco? We thought, well, first of all, we'll probably never be able to achieve that. But second of all, there's sometimes really good reason to divide things up into different GitHub orgs. So we thought we're not going to try to reduce them necessarily. What we're going to do is focus on governance and have clear governance behind each one, behind each GitHub repo and make sure that all of the repos, all the repositories that are in a particular GitHub org follow that governance. That way, we weren't going to even try to unify on the governance. We just said have a governance and then follow that for your GitHub org and for your repos. I was in the DevNet team at Cisco at the time. That was really our developer outreach team. So I was one of the owners of the DevNet org, and I had some close colleagues who were owners of the Cisco org, and we thought, well, let's at least start with those two. So with the DevNet org, we put up a very simple description of what it was we were trying to do. It's a place for us to collaborate with the community on sample code and various projects that are used in some way with DevNet. So it's very broad, but yet told you a bit about what we wanted to do. We have an email alias where you can easily contact us, and then we just verified that we actually own the authoritative for the domain developer.sysco.com. So you knew this was legitimate. So when you see like all of these many Cisco GitHub orgs, at least this one you knew, okay, we know what it's about and we know it's legit. So the other one I mentioned, the Cisco GitHub org, this one was a bit more general purpose just as it says here, open source projects from Cisco systems. At least you have some idea what it's there for. You have a person you can contact. If you know Fluffy, he's very responsive, he's passionate about open source, you get a good answer from him. Again, verified that we own the Cisco.com domain. Just so again, you get at least a little bit of assurance of who you're talking to. So this just solved our initial problem of not knowing who to contact if you had a question about what this GitHub org was about, and hopefully the description even helped you have at least a good clue of what it was about. So a step in the right direction. The next thing we thought we needed to figure out and make clear was what's appropriate for one versus the other. This is both for our internal users who will be contributing to it for external audiences as well. We said, well, the Cisco DevNet one, we will use that primarily for small projects. It's a sample code where we're trying to illustrate, here's an example of how to use one of the APIs of one of our products as an example. Or an integration between some of our products and someone else's product. Whereas the Cisco GitHub org, this would be for larger projects that actually have value outside of Cisco. We're starting them, we're running them, we're maintaining them, but we feel in many cases know that there's people outside of Cisco who outside of using any Cisco product find them very valuable as well. We really expect and want people outside of Cisco to contribute. Because of the significance of these projects and the contribution model, we also keep, and the fact there's fewer of them, we keep closer tabs on them. We really think a bit more proactively about community of each of these individual projects or repos. The next thing is public versus private. I'm going to talk about this in relation to repos, but also in terms of people, because I think there's an interesting phenomenon. What you have to keep in mind is that when you're looking at a GitHub org, if you're not a member of that org, you see a different version of it, and a different number of things than people who are a member of it.  As an example here, what I'm showing now is what a member sees, is when I was logged in, but then if a non-member comes, they see something a bit different. One of the governance aspects that we put in place is, well, for the Cisco DevNet org and for the Cisco org too, all of the repos we have there should eventually be public. So we don't really plan on having any private repos. If they're meant to be private, they don't really belong in these GitHub orgs. We have other things. We have enterprise GitHub. We have other ways of keeping code internal. Don't mess with a private repo on GitHub, if that was what your intention is. So yes, it might be private for a little while, but it should become public. If you look at the two versions here, you'll see that we have 681 repos total and 673 are public. So a non-member sees almost as many. So we actually are doing a good job. I can tell you a few years ago, we were not doing as good a job. I'd say close to half of our repos were actually private. So we've cleaned that up a lot. One thing that's still a bit odd here is you see we have 210 people in our org. But if you're not a member, you only see 12 people. That's despite me trying to ask people, hey, the default is when you join an org, you're private and you have to choose to make yourself public, which is probably good from a privacy point of view. But it can really make complicated things when people want to contact you and reach out to you. In fact, what you'll see sometimes is a GitHub org that has a lot of members, but all of them are private. So for you a non-member, you'll see zero people. If they didn't provide an e-mail alias or some other way for you to contact them, you also can't see any of the people who were involved. So you're stuck in terms of trying to figure out, why does this thing exist and how can you learn more? Okay. Next, just a brief discussion of membership and permissions. So GitHub, you probably know this, has different roles. You have owners, members, and outside collaborators. I'm just going to talk a little bit about how we've used them and kind of evolved our use of them. Now, as an owner of a GitHub org, you're basically a super user. It's like root privilege. You can do everything and anything within that GitHub org. So when we first started out, whenever anyone wanted to add a new repo or change anything, it's like, okay, I'll make you an owner. So we ended up just having, almost everyone was an owner. We had people who weren't even at Cisco who were owners or who were owners and then ended up leaving Cisco and going doing something else. Nothing awful came as a result of this to be honest, but we realized that that isn't really right. It's just lazy and while it's empowering to let everyone do everything, that's probably not a good practice, especially as things start to grow. So we have reduced it. We still have a little over 20 owners, which I would say is arguably too many and we should really try to reduce it more to just a few like three or five. But at least they're all Cisco employees who have good ties to the DevNet group. Also, we made two-factor authentication mandatory, if you're going to be an owner. This gives us a little bit better sense that someone's account isn't going to get hacked in there, and bad things happen to our GitHub org. So we're not great here, but we're better than we were. Now remember, this is the default role in GitHub. By default, all members have access to all of your private repos. They're able to see all of those. But now remember, we don't really want to have private repos to begin with. Initially, everyone who wasn't an owner actually was a member and had accessed all those private repos, and we weren't very diligent about, well, should they really see our private repos? Are they a Cisco employee or are they not? Did they just contributed something so we made them one? Maybe they shouldn't see these private repos. So now what we're trying to do is make you a member only if you have a need to see these private repos. If you think about it, there should be very few private repos, so there should be very few people that really need to see that. So we're using members less and less. We still have about 150, but again, we've reduced that. I think it would also be good if we forced all of the members to have two-factor authentication, but so far, we've just asked for that. We haven't enforced it. Then the third role is an outside collaborator, and I didn't even understand what this was at first, but now I'm a big fan of it, and basically anyone who wants to contribute something doesn't even need to be an outside collaborator, but where it is really handy is, I can create a new repo for someone. I don't even need to make them a member of our org, yet I can make them an admin of that repo and really empower them to do everything and anything with that repo, and they just become an outside collaborator. So they don't see any of the private repos. This is a great way for me to work with people who are not Cisco employees who have no need to see our private repos, and yet let them have vast rights with the repo that they are the admin for. So we started making use of this a lot, and so we have more than 500, and that's great. The one thing is I wish we could get them all to have two-factor authentication too. So in summary with permissions, for us the level of a repo, that's our main guardrail. We've actually turned off the GitHub default that says members can create new repos, and we said only owners, those 20 odd people can create new repos. Now once we create a repo, then we give very broad, in some cases very broad rights to it to someone who may not even be a Cisco employee by making them an admin, and this has worked out great for us. So I think it's a practice that at least for now, we plan to continue. Okay. Now shifting gears to contribution, we're here at an open source conference. Obviously, we want people to contribute. So it's very important to welcome and encourage contribution, and as I mentioned before, you don't need to be a member, you don't even need to be an outside collaborator to contribute, and because contribution can take many forms, and it could be as little as starring a repo, submitting a clarification for a read me, sending in a pull request. All of these are ways of contributing, and what we try to stress is for your repo, make sure that you let people know how you want them to contribute. Most people are willing to contribute the way you want them to, but you have to tell them how you want them to contribute. So we really emphasize having a contributing file in your repo or putting the equivalent information in your read me, and before you contribute to someone's repo, make sure you've read their contributing file and contribute accordingly. That will just reduce a lot of that initial friction that may happen, and lead to you contributing in a way that's rewarding for you, but also expected by the project. The other thing is a code of conduct, and this is a very simple ask of people, but it's also very important. So we stress that you should state your code of conduct in your repo, because we really want to foster a welcome and open environment in which everyone's able to participate in a hassle-free, very positive way. So we provide a sample code of conduct, which we think works pretty well. You don't have to adopt that, but we say you should have that or something like it, just to create that good atmosphere. Then what we did was we put these files, the contributing file, the code of conduct, and then a read me that illustrates what we think a good read me looks like, all the points you should try to cover in your read me, an example of a license so people are aware of how that works and how to add that to a repo. We put all of that in this template repo, and we put this up as an example for people to be able to use. They can clone it, they can run a script where they answer a few questions, and then they get an automatically creates a customized version of it, and sets up their repo with these things in place, a good read me where they can just fill in the blank essentially, the code of conduct and whatnot. So we're just really trying to make it easy for people to do the right thing, which you'll find out most people actually want to do the right thing if you can help them, and especially if you can make it easy. Okay. Now moving to licensing and copyright. I'm not a lawyer, I know just enough to get myself into trouble sometimes. So I'm not going to go into any depth here. But just to let you know, very broad level, we tried to use two different licenses the majority of the time. Either like a BSD, three clause license or really an MIT license to those two we use. Kind of similarly for these small projects, most of the ones that I mentioned we have in the Cisco DevNet GitHub work tends to be that a very simple, clear, concise license that gives you sufficient permissions to use it and do with it what you want is sufficient. So of course we may alter that based on the dependencies you use and other licenses that are involved with those dependencies. But by and large for these smaller projects we use BSD or sometimes MIT. Then for the larger projects, the projects that I was mentioning are more typical of the Cisco GitHub org. There we usually do Apache and we go with the Apache license just because it provides a bit more structure and some of the things that make it easier for collaborators outside of Cisco to feel comfortable with collaborating that that's a safe environment and for us to accept their contributions to. So we usually don't go with that for some of the really small projects because we just don't feel it's worth the added complexity. But we do that for the larger projects and this is just as a general rule. Now the one thing that I do want to stress and this is actually a simple thing but it happens all the time is people mess up on the copyright and as much as I love the functionality in GitHub to create a template license files, I think that's great. It leads to a lot more people putting licenses on their file, on their repo. But you can just see here, for example, I was creating a default one for which license, the BSD3 clause. And now by default the copyright owner is going to be my name. And in the event I didn't put my name with my GitHub account, it would just be my cryptic user ID. This isn't the end of the world but it's certainly not ideal. What we'd like this to be is Cisco Systems, Inc., and its affiliates. So just a very simple change but we have to let people know, don't take the default, put this in instead. And then people have tended to do the right thing but until we made it obvious to them, this got messed up a lot. Now the point that I do want to spend a little bit time though on is this corporate license challenge. And if any of you who work at large companies, you probably run into this. Not all the code that we want to share really can be open sourced either because it conflicts with our business strategy to open source it. Or I guess we could open source it but it's not really appropriate because it's only useful to paying customers because you can't use it unless you're paying us for access to the web service that has the API that supports the APIs or something like that. So it doesn't really feel right to open source that and then say, but you have to pay us. So we wanted a way to share this code and make it easy to do that but without discouraging people from open sourcing code when possible and when it is the right thing and without confusing the community. So we came up with this Cisco sample code license and it is not an open source license. There are restrictions, it can only be used with Cisco products. It's not meant to replace open source in any way but what this did was it empowered our community to share code very quickly and easily with the community, right? And code that they wouldn't have been able to share otherwise or that would have required negotiating a license that would have slowed things down. So now we can put it out quickly. And what I'm actually finding is in a lot of cases, people will put stuff out quickly using this license. And then if there's interest, we can actually go back and re-license it with an appropriate open source license. So it's kind of a speed thing for us too. The gotcha there being, we need to watch out for people just being lazy and open sourcing with this, or sorry, putting code out with this license and never getting back to do the open source when they could. We still want open source to be the default whenever it's appropriate. Okay, I'm gonna kind of skip the navigation stuff in the interest of time. But basically when we have all of these GitHub repos, you can think that we wanted to make it easy for people to find code regardless of whether they were in one of the GitHub repos that I've mentioned or one of those other dozens. So we had kind of a quick and dirty way of doing it using automated tools and APIs, and then we switched to this opt-in method called code exchange. And I've given entire talks on it. If you can just read a little bit about that, but in the interest of time, I'm gonna just gloss over this, because I don't think it's as important for this talk. And I just want to make sure I have time for next steps. So a few things, you've seen security stressed at this talk. It's an area where we know we could improve, especially with those 600 and something odd small projects that don't get a lot of scrutiny in many cases. There's security vulnerabilities all over the place in those. Having a way of identifying them and dealing with them more systematically would be great. Establishing and tracking some metrics, we don't really do that. I'm gonna look for topics and I'll be going to the chaos con. And hopefully understanding a little bit better how to do that. An audit process, that would help us a lot because we're really good about making sure a repo only gets created and added into our GitHub org if it's appropriate, but then you need to make sure it's still appropriate over time and figure out when it's maybe you should archive it. Then I want to take this governance that I mentioned that we've applied to a couple of our GitHub orgs and see if we can apply it more broadly across all of Cisco, because I think we've learned a lot from it. And I think, in general, those other GitHub orgs could be improved. And we probably learned more from talking with them too. And then lastly, we want to make it easier to contribute to open source within Cisco. We've done a lot of improvements in this area already. One area we have not tackled yet is recognition. And so there's a lot of people doing great things with open source in Cisco. And I feel like they're not getting recognized or rewarded for that enough. We reward people for patents and things like that. We don't really reward them for open source. So it'd be really good to make some improvements there. With that, I think I used most of all my time, but we may, there may not be a session after me if you have any questions. And I'm certainly happy to stick around. But any quick questions? Any suggestions of things that you're like, wow, he was saying was a good thing. We need to know something even better we should do. I'm looking for other suggestions for improvement to help add to my next steps. Okay, yeah. I need to create a repo and just open a pull request. Instead of like, hey, I need to talk to- Instead of sending us an email, they can do it with a pull request. Nice. It feels a little more developer friendly too, so fantastic. Well, thanks, I'll look into that. All right, well, thank you all very much. And I look forward to the rest of the conference. Hope you enjoy it too.