How's everybody doing? Did everybody go to the pub crawl last night? Somebody? Nobody? Anybody? Some of us are a little bit slow today so we hope this presentation goes okay. So just to make sure you're in the right room, we're talking about Drupal on a dime today. My name is Jennifer Holes and this is Ben Coder. Just a little bit about who we are. I'm the director of sales and marketing for a full service Drupal design and development agency and we're based in Vancouver, Canada and my partner here Ben. My name is Ben Coder and I'm the lead developer at Ediminish X Media. And the CTO. And transitioning in the role of CTO. So basically we tried to focus this presentation on sort of two sets of people. One would be a designer slash developer looking for strategies to build a Drupal site. Cost saving, time saving, budget saving, whatever. And then the other is if you're actually a client interested in building a site with Drupal and looking to kind of leverage those things as well. We just get like a show of hands. How many people here are kind of like in the designer developer camp? And then other people are you from organizations potentially looking to use Drupal for your sites? Anybody like that here? Okay, so nice mix of everybody. And basically why we're here is just to kind of go over some of our experiences with helping clients build sites that are cheap, fast and good all together. So where this all kind of started at our company the way that we started looking at new opportunities and new ways to take on kind of lower budget jobs was this was actually from a prospect that had contacted me and he said in looking for a developer I found that there are an equal number of single person companies who cannot handle this job as there are multi person agencies who will not work for less than twenty thousand dollars. Unfortunately neither of these is the right fit for me. We're about fifteen people about ten of those are developers and a couple of years ago we said listen we can't take projects under twenty five thousand dollars just the way that our team is set up. It just proved to be too costly and budgets were getting run up because we were treating each individual project kind of starting from scratch and working with that client to kind of I guess lean towards their needs versus trying to kind of instill and force upon them some strategies that could help them get what they want but at you know a good budget within a good timeline at a good price. So I don't know how many of you read the Oatmeal are you guys familiar with the Oatmeal.com so this is like one of my favorite comics from the Oatmeal how web design goes straight to hell. So it's kind of the idea where a prospect comes to you as me the sales person as I'm potentially taking on somebody's business. You have a couple of calls or a couple of face to face meetings with the client and everything seems great you kind of outline their expectations and you collect your requirements and based on what they need you say yeah sure we can do it in X amount of price and then we find right from that moment on when it gets to the development stage all of a sudden all this other crap gets thrown into the mix and soon you're finding your scope is getting out of line and your budget is getting out of line and your timelines are getting pushed back. So one of the things that we started doing with clients is you know I am a unique snowflake I think you guys anybody who's designed and developed a website it's like somebody will come to you and be like no I've got the best idea it's like Facebook and YouTube and Twitter all rolled into one and it's totally unique and there's nothing like it out there so it has to be a total custom build no like that module sounds great but I need it to do this this and this and that's kind of like the first stop that we are putting on clients like you're not a unique snowflake chances are something's been done before how can we take something that's been done before and make it work for your unique business needs to give you the most value at your ridiculously low budget that you've made us work with. So again fast, cheap good you're always hearing you need to pick any too you can't have all three so what some of the things that Ben's going to go into in a minute is just talking about strategies within the design and development stage where you can get all three. So you can't always get what you want there are certain red flags that usually come up right in the beginning stage of projects that we have with the client so we wanted to share a couple of those with you and also kind of like how to approach these red flags if they come up and one of my absolute favorite that sometimes comes up is that a client will say to you well I want to switch to Drupal I see all the benefits of using Drupal and open source CMS and all of that but I want that my site at least works the same way as my old system at least should look like my old system or have the same functionality as my old system so that is kind of like a first red flag that you really need to address right away because if they want to have something that is exactly like their old system why do they want to switch in the first place it doesn't make sense this will create later on it will be more time consuming to try to recreate in Drupal something that was built for example over years as a custom PHP system and easily you can easily run out of budget if you're trying to if you're going along with a client there that has that expectation and actually also a little bit further on to that today at 1230 there's also another presentation called I'm leaving you at the risk of dumping your old CMS for Drupal so you manage them so if you're someone who actually is thinking about doing that is switching from your old CMS system to Drupal that might be also a presentation that is really interesting for you the thing to keep in mind and to really make sure that the client is getting that is that every CMS doesn't matter if it's Drupal or WordPress or Joomla or if it's something proprietary it has its idiosyncrasies it works it's certain ways it has its strong points and it has it's weak areas and Drupal might be a little bit plain out of the box but y'all are aware of like the multitude of modules that are provided by the community and that are out there so again thinking about that concept of I'm a unique snowflake which is not true chances are that someone already has built something that addresses your needs or your client's needs now will that solution that is already built fit 100% to the requirements that you have now well chances are that this will not be the case but I don't know if you're familiar with the 80-20 rule that you can get about 80% of your requirements done for 20% of your budget if you think about that then this is a really good starting point with the project so the idea would be to reuse already contributed modules instead of recreate modules or recreate functionality just because there's one little piece that is okay we're trying to sorry about that is that any better okay sorry now where was I so the idea of reusing functionality modules that have been already built that are already out there instead of recreating something completely new just because there's this tiny little bit that is not how you envision it to work and I'm also going to go into that a little bit later as well another red flag that sometimes comes up during the initial discovery is if someone is saying well I would like to my side to look or work like Amazon or Facebook well if you're on a tight budget that's probably not possible and it's really important to make clear that these sides haven't been built within like one project phase over like two or three months these sides have grown over years and years and have improved over years and years so that is something to keep in mind and also other things that sometimes clients like to slip by a little bit on the side is well we have this little in house system that we use and we just need to have like a little connection to the Drupal side but it's nothing big just to see as we file and in the end it's turning out into like a full on live connection to their MS access machine that they have sitting somewhere without an internet connection in their office so those are things that really you need to kind of like make sure to iron that out and to make clear that it might sound simple but to make sure that your client knows that no this is actually way more difficult than what you had in mind also another one that we hear from time to time is that someone is saying well we want the site to basically manage our day to day business so it shouldn't be just like a website that shows information it also should also completely handle all our business on the back end side so if you hear something like that and they're coming to you and say well we only have $20,000 then you might have to talk with them about their expectations that they have regarding that but coming again also to the 80-20 rule and as you see on the slide here you just might find what you need so a client might have the great expectations of how things should work might not be familiar with how Drupal works and some of the ways that Drupal does things but it is important to help the client to understand like well you know what give it a try this is what we can do within the budget and within the timeline that we have so have a look at it because even though it's not exactly what you envisioned it might be exactly what the people that work on a day-to-day basis really like or that this is actually really the thing that they would that they will find beneficial so I put this slide up because I think it's really hilarious when a web project gets started and you kind of pick out your point person in the company that you're working with who acts as their project manager working alongside our project manager and then things like IA mock-ups like wireframes or design mock-ups or as we're in agile development doing sprints and we're having things tested all of a sudden these other voices start coming to the mix and before you know it like everyone has got their own opinion of how things should work and you've already discussed the requirements with the client and outlined them but now that they've passed it around to more people in their organization they're coming back with more and more requirements that are just blowing the scope out of the water and no word of a lie we actually had a client who said he just wanted to show the design to Mr. because his sister did design in a magazine like 20 years ago so she should have some input into like what this looks like and she came back with a whole bunch of little changes etc etc where it's like go ahead and collect that list of requirements but table that and have the one point person and try and keep as few people as few key people involved in the project as possible rather than sending it out to the whole company for feedback so a couple of key departments are the people that should be representing the new site and getting a prototype out there built to kind of get people playing with rather than everybody saying oh well if it just did this if it just did that leading to scope and budget creep and further to what Ben was saying about a site like Amazon Rome wasn't built in a day you find clients that when you we were in the past a few years ago we were taking a waterfall approach to projects so we're taking on projects anywhere between 50 and 150 thousand dollars and then the requirements just started growing and growing and when a project is that big and it takes like six months to a year to complete you're finding that by the time that six months comes around that their business or maybe even their requirements have changed and now you've spent all this time building something that may not even necessarily be relevant anymore so we've really got obviously we've embraced agile development like I'm sure most of you in the room have as well and we really encourage clients even if budgets not an issue to prototype small things and explain to them they're kind of going to get a more vanilla version but they're going to be able to get their hands in and test and like Ben said be able to figure out Drupal a little bit more and figure out what they like and don't like and then sort of add those Lego blocks in rather than building this big Lego castle and handing it over and it might not even be relevant to the client by the time that it's done so the idea there just you know prototype and build upon the smaller thing that you started with and I'll start off with this one and then pass it back to Ben but you know the proof is in the is in the pudding everybody in a company when you when you're working with a with a site and when you're working with your business you have sort of an inside intricate knowledge of everything that you're doing but you start to forget what the people who are actually using your site are using it for so our thing that we're always trying to push on clients rather than try and get a million requirements or features functionality different design things social media etc start with something small and then get feedback and you know spend the budget where that feedback has come so your site makes the most sense to the people that use it and again if we think about for example Google Google started out as a search engine and not started out as a replay as an online replacement for Microsoft Office so things like that have developed over over years and years and just wanted to mention like two real life examples where it makes sense to break it down into these stories and into these different phases and really look at what is really important in the beginning for your client or for your company so imagine the requirement well if I if I post a if I publish a new blog post I want this to be sent out to Twitter and on the Facebook page and on Google Plus which is a valid requirement and there are modules out there that will help you to do exactly that it's not a big issue but if your client or your company don't even have a Facebook account yet or a Twitter account yet or working with Google Plus this might be something those might be like 5 to 10 hours that actually would be better spent on something different the ability with Drupal is there that's a nice thing and that's the thing that needs to be made clear the ability to do that is there but is this really the most important part that we have just because it is really fancy and you would like to have that as a feature or is that something that can be put a little bit on the side and in the end if there's still budget left or maybe in the next phase this can be used another point also regarding prototyping and regarding the other slide that we had with you might not get what you want is content workflow Dries mentioned the workbench module for Drupal 7 which is a really nice addition and really powerful but your client or your company might have a very complicated workflow about who should be an editor of a node and who can approve if that node goes live and how about then revisions and all of that so that might be really complicated in your case and you might not be able to absolutely replicate that one-to-one with the workbench module so prototyping in this way would be that you're trying to get as close as possible to that required workflow with a module like workbench and then you let the client go in and you say like okay this is a prototype and we set up the workbench module and all the support modules in a way that we think is as closest to what your company is doing and then actually let the people that need to do the approvals that need to do the reviews let them have a week or so to play around with and see how it works see how the workbench module is approaching things and again then you might find that people come back and say like this is absolutely horrible this is not working for us at all okay then you can address that or they might say this is great this is actually exactly what we need and in reality some of the approval process is actually not happening online and there's no need to have that approval process online because that approval process is happening offline so this is kind of like also again the 80-20 approach and trying to break down the big picture into the smaller little pieces that can be achieved easier and again might be something that your client actually likes already the way it is and how money and time can be saved a couple of different options that you can go as a company or as a development shop as a developer so how can you achieve that to be really cost effective here and the nice thing about Drupal there are a lot of different options and different ways how you can save time and money the first one that we wanted to highlight as an example are you could use fully hosted solutions and we just have examples here there are a couple more out there that you could use something like sub hub or Drupal gardens so this is a great way to get your feet wet if you want to try out Drupal in a really easy way it is set up within minutes depending on which package you choose it's also free you might find some unique features in these products if you have a Drupal garden side you might have played around with the theme builder there which is pretty nice and if you had a chance to look at sub hub for example they did an amazing job when it comes to UI improvements and really making something trivial like placing a block really easy and intuitive and using that also brings the advantage that you have hosting and support included in the different packages that they offer so for smaller projects that might be the way for your organization to start off with and at any time you can also take your sites away from these providers if you want to grow later on now this is also going a little bit into the concept we have listed here limited to the features provided by the service well it might be that already has everything that you need but if you want to add other modules it is possible in some of the services or if you want to have custom development added to it sub hub for example then offers that as a paid service to continue to develop your site for you but then you also have to keep in mind that when you move the sites away from those service providers you might lose some of the features so for example if you have downloaded a Drupal garden site and use it locally you will find that the theme builder for example is lost you don't have that anymore one other solution are Drupal distributions there are a ton out there and they are really nice ones open public Drupal commons atrium these are all solutions that you have that have a ton of features they might already have more features than you will ever need for your organization or for your client even to the point where you would need to disable some of those features they're right there for you to download they're easy to install they all come with install profiles there's training and support and documentation usually provided on these websites that provide those distributions and as it is basically a Drupal installation that you have full control over you have also full control over extending these features and adding your own modules or adding any custom development that you need later on but if you're looking from an organization that is looking for a Drupal website on the con side of course have that you need someone who knows how to set up like a hosting for example how to install Drupal so it's not just one click thing like with the fully hosted services and in some of those some of these distributions you have a bit of a steeper learning curve in order to get things done so that is also a really good solution not only for developers or companies but also for organizations that look to use Drupal to look at the distributions that are available out there and use those as a starting point for your project and see what you can already leverage there and what has already been created there for you and use that for your projects but then another thing also to mention for developers and development shops is again to think about what we said before and not to try to reuse things and don't recreate things so if you build functionality for your clients think about if you can put that into a feature and set up maybe your own feature server which is done really easily keep your features that you create for yourself so that you can in the end reuse it so that is for example something that we at ImageX Media have started what Jenny mentioned a couple of years ago that we said we're building that news and event sites over and over again for our clients so how can we make that more cost efficient, how can we make that quicker and it's like okay well you know what let's build a feature that has all the views and all the content types in it that we reuse all the time and then if it's necessary we will adjust that for that specific client but that is something to keep in mind use tools like features like Strongarm in order to create to build up your own repository there are also features available on Drupal.org so you also can give those features back if you see fit or use some of the features that are already out there and created in order to cut down the cost for yourself and for your client that's basically how we got to a place where we could do fast, cheap and sorry can everybody hear me, that's basically where we got to a place where we could do fast, cheap and good in essence what Ben was referring to at our company ImageX we created sort of like a Chinese menu base where we had the same clients or different clients asking us repeatedly for the same things knowing that within each of these clients that they have specific requirements that they always want tailored and going back to the unique snowflake well no it has to be like this but if we can take them what we've built and kind of hand hold them and from our point of view push them into using stuff that is already in existence they can leverage what at one point cost us a lot of money to build and is actually quality features and functionalities and sites but for a fraction of the cost if they're willing to stay in line with our kind of Chinese menu of options and in doing so we found that now we don't have to, we stayed away in the past from taking on these 5, 10, 15, 20k clients because we just would find them a nightmare because we're always doing these things where we're allowing them to push us into building stuff that was uniquely for them which just obviously isn't feasible within that kind of a budget but once we started with this IXM base and kind of pushing clients in the opposite direction it's actually added a decent revenue stream for our company and it's filled in pockets of capacity and development time because our developers can pump this stuff out with their eyes closed because most of the work has been done we're just slightly altering it for the client but then holding the client to say listen it can do this, this and this but you can't get it this way for the money that you have but get something out get it tested, get feedback and decide where it makes the most sense to spend the money and if the requirements that you thought were really important to your business actually are providing business value based on real life feedback. What did you think? That's it. I mean I think with Drupal the answer is always can it do this or can it do that? Well sure it can do anything you want like how much money and how much time do you have and then that's when you get the answer of well I have 20k and I need it in six weeks and then that's when you got to get realistic and say for 20k in six weeks here's the things that we can do for you so you're definitely juggling between different clients' personalities and for some people that might not be the right fit a client will be like well if you can do it exactly how I want it I'll go somewhere else but more often than not we'll find those clients, we'll come back in the end and realize that no one's going to do what they want or if somebody says they're going to do what they want within their budget they've made a grave mistake and we'll regret it later so you're definitely changing profiles depending on the customer's particular personality and requirements. Yes, sometimes it is an issue the important thing is to really have that clear with a client beforehand kind of like and really explain them what the agile approach means. If you have these smaller projects sometimes you will not get around to do kind of like a hybrid solution where you kind of like agreeing to a fixed price but you do a bit of an agile approach as in like okay this is the fixed price so this is the limit that we're working in now let's break your requirements into all the little stories and prioritize them and then let's go through and you see how much time we spend and how things are progressing and after your first sprint or so the client has a product that he can work with and maybe he's changing things a little bit but then you need to also make clear to the client is like okay you know what we will let you know once we are reaching 90% of our agreed time so we're reaching the end of what we can do within that limit so sometimes that is it is a bit tricky but sometimes you kind of like need to try a mixed approach there I think something we also try and do when we're estimating to give clients an idea instead of I mean we'll break things the way that we work is we'll break things down by line items and show a client like how much time is being spent on each particular feature and requirement but another thing that we try and do especially when somebody has a lack of droopal knowledge is we add a column that says percentage of core functionality or existing module functionality so something that in their head seems like a really minor requirement could be like well that's only 30% core droopal functionality so what you're asking for is going to require 70% customization and that gives them a better idea in their head where the biggest time sinks of the project are going and we found that's been really helpful to show people and so many clients just think that the things that they're asking for are so little and meaningless why can't they just be done I just I just want to like write text in line no big deal you know whatever their requirement is and then when we show them well listen this is how droopal works and what you're asking is moving x percentage away from the core but here's what the core does what can we do within the core or within the contributed modules that's going to get close enough or you know maybe even extremely close to what you want to do if you're just willing to back off of a few custom things I mean it's a bit more difficult in a smaller budget to do a proper discovery phase but if we don't have the time typically we'll set it aside anywhere from 15 to 100 hours for discovery that's typically for larger projects you say have a 10 to 20k budget we'll do our best to understand your requirements but what we really try and do is outline in writing all the things it will not do so you know they have a requirement I don't know like I want social media on their site and to us you know if we don't dig deep into that it's like okay we can just throw up links to Twitter and Facebook but then later on they'll take that and be like no I wanted feeds I wanted you know like dynamically displayed on these pages etc etc so we'll say okay social media does not do this this this this this but we'll do this so really making you know a point to I mean in sales it's like get everything in writing up front because like you said assumptions will be you know misunderstood between the client and the person building the site so we try and actively outline what the things are that it will not do and that I think helps us stay out of trouble in a lot of in a lot of projects where a requirement that you think is simple can all of a sudden become really ambiguous and complicated so what we've created which we've sort of dubbed internally as launch kit that we're hoping to we haven't decided yet if we're going to do like a distribution or software of a service with it but right now it's kind of IXM base IXM is just short for image X media we find that that's kind of like a combination of the sub hub and the Drupal gardens but I mean that brings about an interesting point in certain situations when it's a simple site like let's say some kind of brochure site but maybe with something like an events calendar and a blog or something we'll just build it on Drupal gardens and like not if it's going to be more of a hassle to explain what Drupal gardens is to the client and sell them on the benefits of Drupal we'll just build it on Drupal gardens and they're none the wiser and we've created them a site that they think is beautiful I mean we've we've created them for you she was asking saying that as a project manager she finds it difficult when a client pushes back if she were to say well no we're not going to do that that that would create animosity and potentially throw the project off and I'm not a project manager I'm a salesperson but like I find with an upfront contract so first of all some of the things that we just mentioned what it is that you're delivering and what it's almost more important to say what it's not going to do versus what it is going to do because those are the things that you can point back to the client and say we told you it's not going to do this we can do that but it's not in scope but we as a company have went through a fair amount of I'd say project manager turnover and we really realized we needed people in the roles with the strong personality and reminding clients that in coming to us you saw this out because you said you wanted Drupal experts and the advice that we're giving you isn't because we're trying to save us money or screw you out of giving you something but we're trying to give you the best advice possible for your budget what you're trying to build for business value priorities we want the freedom and we seek out clients that if they come to us with something that we think is a really terrible idea that's a flag for us and then we say I don't know that unless you're willing to back off of this and maybe start small whatever you know when people how many people I'm sure tons of you get like Facebook requests but it's slightly different but totally unique and it's going to be the next big thing and that's just a flag and I think that leads to more problems than if you're clearly outlining things prior it's like setting like a communications standard before the project begins and then reminding client constantly throughout the process I think helps get out of trouble but definitely a client will in our experience well it's like with anything if you think you can get away with something you're going to try and as a project manager we've seen in our projects if you cave to one thing that opens the floodgates for way more things getting out of whack with scope and budget I remember one time where we made the mistake it was a bigger project but we were sitting in with a client and they were kind of like oh and we would like to have this and this and we're like well okay it's a larger project it's probably not going to be that much issue with the budget and we said because it was as part of the discovery phase and they had one idea after the other and we were just writing it down and then we sent the revised estimate and they were like what happened here why does it all of a sudden like went up like 100k and we spoke with the client and we explained it and the client was saying why didn't you tell me right in that meeting that what I'm asking is so far out from what Drupal core and the contributed module are doing because if you would have set that in that meeting I would have backed off so we find that you need to in the conversations with the client to same as with putting in a percentage of like how much can be achieved of this functionality with contributed modules and Drupal core really gives the client a good idea of like where do I add like really complicated things to the whole package and we really learned from that experience to push back right away at the beginning and saying you know it's not impossible but what you're just asking here just increased your budget properly by 20,000 yeah and I think that was an instance where like the client literally said to you like I just paid you to do this discovery because you're the experts and you and he wasn't being mean about it but he said you know you wasted my time going down the list of these requirements when you knew this was going to expand the scope by 2 to 400 hours you know you wasted your time scoping out everything for something that we just don't have another you know $75,000 to add for one feature on the site it is and it could be anything from a 400 hour job to a 600 depending on how we decide to build it if you were in a position, what would you tell the client with their secret budget would you go towards the higher end or would you go to the higher end possibly obviously risk being more expensive than everybody else or risk not maximizing profitability did everybody hear that question or should I repeat it what's that so you're asking if a client has a secret budget and you want to know whether you should bid high or low if it's fixed so if you bid too low you would potentially get yourself into trouble because it's fixed but if you bid too high you might price yourself out the way from fixed budgets would be my first thing and we're not against doing fixed budgets but if a client really harps on us to do a fixed budget we'll say we'll take it time and materials and then we'll like multiply it a couple of times because we're going to pad ourselves you know to protect ourselves but from a sales perspective I would bid low but with the caveat of coming to do a discovery which I think is absolutely necessary in a fixed bid project low ball but then with giant caveats all around it saying this could go up once we go but I mean that's kind of folly in its own right I don't like playing the games of the secret budget because that signals the client that is price shopping or a commodity understanding that in business if you're in a slow time you might have to potentially take on a job but right there that's a flag where someone's being at least trying to get ranges out of client so I'm like it can be super broad but if someone won't share a budget of any kind and then so within like government type bid right so are they making you sign off on that bid once you've submitted it saying yeah like that to me is like giant red flag especially because I find governments are they'll take an RFP for something that wasn't web related at all and just change like building a shed into like replacing that with like web design just because they're working off of standard templates and we got ourselves into a lot of trouble with a city project in the US same thing where we had to sign off on the bid and they had a clear set of requirements but then once the project started it just got ballooned out of the water and we had to we had to sever the relationship at a penalty but that's a tough one and you know our stance as an agency is we won't even submit to something like that unless we've got gaps in capacity I don't think I have like a right answer for you on on that one because it is a tough one just one second well it applies to like in software you can typically get 80% of what you need for 20% of the effort or the budget to build so if you looked at something you're getting 80% of what you need and the other 20% is a relevant so if you took like microsoft word for instance it has like 10,000 features but you're probably only ever going to use 20% of them where the other 80% aren't important it's called the what is it the pathetto rule the question was to repeat kind of like the idea behind the 80-20 rule okay if I got the question right so how to manage payment and how do you manage the loans in order to show the client the progress and the project so I'd say 90% of our projects are time and materials and we have a time report system that the client has 24-7 access to and it sounds a bit vigilant but we track by the minute and our developers are required to give a description of what they've done within that time bi-weekly or a monthly basis depending how quickly the project is progressing so the client's getting a really detailed summary of everything that's been done so even if within a 1-2 weeks sprint they might not have something that seems tangible that they can get their hands on and really get into they're seeing where each minute of work is going and the status of where that particular feature is within the development cycle does that answer your question? our developers do get stuck I'm sure like everybody else I think if it's within scope and we said we could do it and then the developer gets stuck we won't charge for it we call that we'd have our developers file that under resolution so the client would never see where those wouldn't see those hours something that the client has popped in as a new requirement and research would potentially be required to figure out a solution that is typically something we'd bill for unless we knew it would take half an hour of going to Drupal.org and finding an appropriate module or what have you and also regarding that because the clients have this where the time is spent one of the important things in the beginning of working with them is that we also let them know if you expect 5 hours spent on this item and let's say 20 hours on this item it could be that the developer is a little bit quicker with this but the time saved here is spent on another one that in the end is a little bit more complicated than initially but if it really is to the point where it is because a developer doesn't know any further and no one else can and requires quite a bit of time then that would be logged as non-villable so the client wouldn't get those hours just like estimate the hours the project might have and then you set it to the scope from 200 to 300 hours and tell that to the client because most of the time the client wants to know what he's going to pay and is not satisfied with it well then might be from 40 to 50k it goes somewhere between that most of our clients say they want to know if we want to pay and then we have to we agreed to estimate but then at the end there has to be some amount of money okay so the question is regarding if a client comes and they don't necessarily have a budget they just put in the requirements and then they want to know how much that costs usually what we do there is we give them we try to to get as much information as possible beforehand before we get back with an estimate and then usually also what we have is a low, medium and high number what we think the different functionalities that they requested will be so that they get an idea of once we get into a discovery phase with a client like that we always would say like okay let's do a discovery phase even afterwards in order to make sure that we're all on the same page but then we would say like okay if this is really if we understood you right and everything is going fine and we can use module A and B for this this will take 10 hours but if it turns out that there is a little bit complication in there because it needs to work together with a different module and we might need to do some custom work there this easily could be 30 hours so they get a range like a low and high range that they have right away to get a better idea of where the risks lie in the different line items that they have and if you have this along with the percentage that you think you can handle that with Drupal Core without custom development that usually gives the clients a really good idea of where risks lie and where hours could easily go up or stay steady and then from there we would go into the discovery phase to really narrow down all of those items and to see that we are on the same page there. If the customer wants a fixed bid in that type of scenario like if what we think it's going to be is 10 hours and the worst case scenario is 20 hours we'll like fix the bid at 40 hours like we'll really really pad it because we have shown we've been able to show proof to clients where clients think that time in materials means like you say it's going to be 200 hours and you'll just run up this giant budget and by the time we're done you're going to present me with an invoice for 600 hours but we've been able to show time and time again that in a lot of cases we're coming under the hours because we have padded a little bit and that time in materials works out cheaper than fixed bid unless you've gotten yourself into a really bad fixed bid scenario where you've fixed something that you knew you shouldn't have based on the scope of the project yet like what the hours are actually tracked at and we changed to that model I think about maybe like nine months ago we refused to give an exact amount of hours anymore just because we know little things come up even if we've done our best to get all the requirements we've done the things where we'll say it won't do this it won't do that things can still come up and it's like it's I don't know it's not like you're I don't know what would be a good example it's not a commodity right like it's a service that you're doing and I find it's hard to pinpoint the exact amount of hours even if you've done the same task over and over again it's never going to be perfect so to me it just doesn't make sense to have hours and say yes this is it if you didn't want to show that range or the client is against seeing ranges then my advice would be to show them one number but it's the padded number right like the high number so the question is if we calculate the project by by hours is that okay yeah I mean I'd say 99% of the time will gather their features and requirements and by each line I don't will assign hours probably the only scenarios we don't have that is we've had a couple of government jobs in Canada where like somebody's come to us and literally said like we want this five page brochure site that we know is going to cost $2500 to build they're like but we only have a $50,000 fixed bid and in that case we'll say alright we think we can do it in 50,000 and then we'll come in at like 49,000 and make them feel good and you know the government but that's a that's a far and few between scenario it's just a little secret I'm just interested in what's the going rate for let's say a model where you charge an hour or to take an example of the smaller brochure site for example the type of site the web designer might have for example which is you know 506 informational pages maybe a portfolio section nothing particularly sophisticated obviously some of the sites but you know the going rate for something like that really or the going rate for an hour I mean we don't have blended rates or anything like that so we so depending on the project and the risk level like we have a bare minimum profitability that we have to meet but our rates are typically between 125 and 200 an hour but if but yeah Canadian but we won't like we won't quote different prices within a single quote so at the lower end sometimes we give discounts for educational institutions that are working with tighter budgets like just as an example but basically our hourly rates are a complexity of the project and when I say complexity is because we would have all senior developers on it and they bill out at a higher rate then or we're paying them a higher rate than somebody intermediate junior like a junior person can bang out a five page brochure site like that so I can typically quote on the low end using somebody like that but if it's complex we need to quote on the high end and that's strictly for like just meeting profitability right well like I said in the past couple of months we've been taking on these smaller projects from the five to 20k model we can like bang those out in like two to three weeks but our sweet spot in projects is kind of like 50 to 150,000 and those range from two to six months and the timeline can obviously vary substantially depending on how fast the customer is moving anything else Josh you got a question for us Josh yeah thanks guys


This is the OTP presented by Farm Bureau Health Plans. See how much you can save on your health coverage with Farm Bureau Health Plans. Get a quote at FBHP.com. From the Bet MGM Studios at Ascension St. Thomas Sports Park with Amy Wells. I'm Mike Keith. And look who's here. It's our old friend Charles Davis. It's game week. It's time for Charles Davis. Charles Davis and Paul Burmeister will call Titans at Bears this Saturday, noon central time from Soldier Field.  Oh, we're very much ready to call a game, but I do have to ask. The home team gets to decide kickoff times, correct? It's kind of, yes, but you work together on it. Visitor have to assent to it or what have you. I mean, I would think they probably have to agree. I think there's, I'm sure there is a conversation at some point, but I think that the home team gets to kind of start the conversation. And if they said the game has to be at noon, I don't think there's anything that Titans could have done about it. It's just generally the two coaches will discuss a little bit. What do you think about the noon start this Saturday? Hate it. Hate it, Billy. Hate it. It's August 12th. Right. It's 3,027 degrees outside. Not in the booth. Yeah, it is too. In Chicago? Yeah. You know, it's not so much the booth itself. It's just, it's open, so whatever it is outside, it is in the booth. Well, yeah. I mean, it will be for us too. You get the same thing. But we get home at a decent hour. That, okay. So there is a tradeoff on it, but I will say this, I don't like afternoon kickoffs in preseason because of the fans. Well, that's true. For the fans. I just can't imagine them being in the stands at that hour, like we've done it here. Oh yeah. Coach Malarky was here and we kicked off against the Panthers at like a two o'clock or a one o'clock. People loved it too. And it was 8 million degrees. Yeah, nobody was happy. And coach wanted to get him out because I think the season opener was going to be at that time.  That was good. Well, I mean, the Titans have a lot of noon games this season. So it makes sense from that like routine standpoint, getting what time you get up and eat what you're going to eat and get to the stadium. And coaches like that would routine at all. Yeah, you get to practice. I was reading. I was reading last night about different teams and schedules. So we'll get on to something else very quickly. The Houston Texans right now of 17 games, 16 are the one o'clock Eastern kickoff. The opening. The noon central. Yeah. Which every coach in the league says that he wants like they if they were up to the coaches, they would kick Sunday or noon or one o'clock, whatever that is, central or Eastern time every single week because your routine stays the same. Yep. But if you're kicking 16 of 17 times, that means they don't think you're very good. That means you were picking first. Right. Yeah. That thing is not going very well. You want to be like Kansas City. You want to be like Tennessee often. You want to have a jumble of games because that means people are interested. That means you're playing the 425. You're playing the Monday night. You're playing Thursday.  And the best teams know how to adjust.  But you get to wear a golf shirt, don't you? Yeah. Thank goodness. You don't have to wear the old suit. And it's a good looking golf shirt too. I don't know if we'll be in that blue, but I like that blue. You like the Titan blue? I do love the Titan blue. I think it's just gorgeous. What do you think about the Oilers uniforms that have come out? I'm fired up. I'm fired up for them because I like history. I like how it gets represented. I like how it gets remembered. And I like the fact that people will now truly understand the Oilers and the Titans are the history, not the Texans and the Oilers because I think people make that mistake very often and understandably, Houston being Houston, but the Oilers became the Titans and represent that history. Love your blue. I might be up there saying, and we're the Houston Oilers. You know who originally had that song? Who had it? So that song was sold to different teams. And you hear it. The Chargers used to use it too. So who had it first was Miami, where the Miami Doll Friends. No way. Really? Yes. It was not just exclusive to one team. Somebody had a pretty good idea. I discovered that the Chargers, I had a Chargers Lion season opener. And all of a sudden, the Chargers scored, and all of a sudden I'm hearing, just standing there. Wait a minute. That's Houston's song. And then I found out, oh, OK, it was out there. It's kind of like watching, what was that cheerleading movie? Bring it on. Bring it on. Sure. Where the guy was selling the routine all across the valley. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone was doing the exact same routine. I had no idea. Syndication is a beautiful thing. It really is. All right. Charles Davis is with us on the OTP. And he is sitting right next to a giant jar of Snickers. You can have one. They are a sponsor. Minus one. Amy Wells. I pulled one early. I'm eating it. You're going to have a bite of the Snickers on the show. The sponsor will love that. I will eat the entire thing throughout the course of the show. I'm starting. Amy, I'm doing my Jerry Maguire. The Snickers are coming with me. All right, so you want me to ask a question while you take a bite? Yeah, you ask. I'm going to snack. OK. So you've seen this Titans team in practice, thoughts, opinions, surprises. What I've seen so far is a team that the way things finished last year, anyone who thinks that that's the norm, better be careful. That's just not the norm. That's just that. That was just one of those. I don't know that anyone can truly explain how everything went at the end of last year. You can make explanations. That's just not the norm for them. This is a Mike Vrable coach team, a brand new GM and Rand Carthon, who I think that they're going to jive very well together because of philosophy, because of belief, how to put things together, and what they want out of a team. It's a team that has a very clear message of who they want to be and how they want to play. Yet, I think we're going to see some differences than maybe what we've seen in the past and how Tennessee is going to play, mainly based on personnel, and that's what good coaching is.  Yeah, you have a philosophy. Yeah, you want to play a certain style.  The Titans don't have a lousy coach. No, they don't. The Titans have one of the best coaches in the NFL, and that's not hyperbole. So they're going to go about it to fit the personnel. The way Traylin Burks has come back this off-season, I'm expecting big things from him, although how much we'll see him in the pre-season remains to be seen. The sign of Deandre Hopkins, of course, is big news, and he looks terrific. The offensive line was a question mark. It remains a question mark until we see them play. I don't know exactly what the coach has planned to do against Chicago this week, but it wouldn't surprise me if the offensive line, who are expected to be started, might actually get some work this week. You know, a lot of the offensive guys won't. They may actually have to get some work because offensive line is all about continuity. It's all about synchronicity. It's all about knowing what the person is doing next to you, and this offensive line hadn't played together. Did you eat the whole Snickers already? No, I just, I'm more of a snacker, so it's like a bite, and then I will talk. Do you have time to ask a question to Charles Davis here? Before I eat another bite? Yes. But Amy, but does Snickers satisfy? It sure does. There you go. So far. It sure does. Yeah. Talking about the Titans offense, and how it looks a little bit different. We'll talk about anything, Lowy. I know. We're really a chatty bunch. We will sell anything on this show. Talking about that offense, and how it's looking a little bit different. One of the position groups that has stuck out to me over the course of the beginning of training camp, and I'd love to hear what you think about it. Is that Titans group? And how they're being utilized a little bit more and a little bit differently. Has that struck you the same way that it struck me? Yeah, I believe that, let's see if we're on the same eye line for this one, okay? The same spot. We've seen this Titans group with tight ends. There could be four tight ends on the roster. And big strong physical guys, obviously you want people to catch the ball. We've seen the Delaney Walkers. Austin Hooper was here to be one of those pass catchers, but we also had people like Jeff Swain who just moved people. That's what he was here for, right? And they would go three, four deep to get that done. I don't think we're going to get more than three on this roster. I don't see that. Josh Wiley trying to come along. He's coming back from injury. My goodness, he's six, seven, but he moves well. And I will say this, I noticed this when he was in college. He knows how to bend and get down into a good hitting position to block people. Oftentimes, the taller player, the taller tight end, they struggle with that and they become much more of a positional blocker where they use their hands and they move you that way. He can get down and get some pop and get some force. I'm really excited about Chico Croclo. I just think that all the things we liked about him coming out of college, all things you saw coming into it, some of the explosive plays, I think they're going to be a lot more explosive plays to come. So I think there's probably going to be three. Trayvon Westcoe is going to be interesting because he's large. He's a large human being in the old style of offense that we know that the Titans were going to run.  I'm eager to see how they try and utilize him and deploy him going now because he will move people off the line of scrimmage, that's for sure. Charles Davis from CBS Sports and NFL Network and also part of the Titans pre-season broadcast team with none other than Paul Burmeister and Corey Curtis is our guest on the OTP. We need to remind you that its official seat geek is now the official ticketing partner of the Tennessee Titans. That's right, the deal is finalized. And seat geek is the newest member of the Titans family. If you haven't heard the name yet, you haven't been listening to the OTP. So what have you been doing? Anyway, if you haven't heard the name yet, get used to it because you'll be hearing it a lot more this season, whether you're buying or selling tickets to Titans games or any other live event in Nashville. Seat geek is the place to do it. Seat geek is the new official ticketing partner of the Tennessee Titans. So Titans fans can fan. Oh wow, caught her with a mouthful of Snickers. Did you take another Snickers? Yeah, you caught that hot. Your peripheral vision is very good, sir. While you were doing the read, that was a great time to go for it. And you just corner your whole thing. But how does that? How do we get a whole jar of Snickers and it ends up on the opposite side for me? You want one? We can get one. Well, I got to talk. I'll be happy to pass it to you. I may have one afterwards. Do we get to guess how many are in there? You can try. I don't know the answer and I put them in there. I would say three less. I'm just saying Nougat is so underrated. Why don't we put Nougat in more stuff? I mean, this is just really hitting all the spots for me. This is so good. All right, let's get back to the OTP while Amy enjoys the Snickers. You know, I put this on just like bread. Not only do we have product placement. Says it right there. No, it's Caramel. Nougat. OK, that's good. We put more Nougat in stuff. It's really good. Go ahead, Mike. OK, so we have Charles Davis on and we're talking about Nougat. I mean, which is great. No, he didn't do it. But give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Very close to DeAndre Hopkins, Nick named Nougat. Nougat. That's true. Nice. That's why he's he gets paid. One of the top guys on CBS Free Snickers. That's right. This defense for the Titans and I mean, how are we going to see this weekend in Chicago? We don't know. But you look at Arden Key and Harold Landry. It's almost like they're two free agents past rushing. Jeffrey Simmons and Danico Autry. Aziz Al Shire at linebacker with Monty Rice. The five defensive back package consists of Byrd and Hooker at the safety spots. Murphy, Bunting and Fulton on the outside. We're seeing McCrary play in the nickel, but he can also move back outside. And then Elijah Molden is playing the nickel. He's playing safety. He's playing as the sixth defensive back in certain packages. So am I getting too excited? No, I don't think so. And the big, the big things I think that have to happen for what we see is potentially a very good defense. Landry back to form and being able to rush to pass her. I think Autry Simmons are going to do what they do. So that's not a real issue. Okay. That's they're going to be top performers. But Arden Key has got to be what we hoped he would be coming out of LSU. Okay. Because remember Arden Key coming out of LSU came after DeNeal Hunter, okay? Who signed recently with Minnesota. Remember they were, contrary, that was a big deal for Minnesota because DeNeal Hunter came out of LSU with not great production in terms of numbers. But you saw him and he was like, God, this guy's bendy and silky. The numbers came in the NFL. I think Arden Key was drafted higher as a result of what we saw from DeNeal Hunter. This is how this league works as you guys will know. We see it. Oh, well, maybe we can get the same thing out of this. Oh, same school.  His numbers just haven't been there. But this is a place where the numbers can jump. But the biggest thing is if Landry's back being full speed and Arden Key is now providing consistent pressure from the other side. The bookends take some of the pressure off of Landry. You can't put all your slide protection that way. You got to make sure that this guy doesn't get to the quarterback as well. Huge, huge deal if they're able to pull it off. Al Shire, the linebacker from San Francisco. Remember, he was the third backer from San Francisco. The other two were pro bowlers. Yeah, Fred Warren is an all pro. Drake Greenlaw is a pro bowler. This guy can play, but he got lost in the shuffle. Now he gets a chance to be a featured performer. And I really like the secondary. But it all has to come together with one thing having to happen. Take the ball away. Right. We're going back to, we go back to Cincinnati in the playoffs at home. Sac Joe Burrow 11 times, nine that count because there were two penalties and never once did the ball come out, right? Ever since that ball game, that's what Tennessee's been emphasizing. We got to, we got to, we got to. If they get much more of that, now you're dangerous again. Now you're doing the things that you need to get the ball back for the offense, giving them opportunities, extra opportunities I should say. But it's exciting to see that group of guys out on defense. And I'm really excited about Elijah Moulton. Let me tell you why. Okay. You guys probably remember how high I was on him coming out of college. So we haven't seen that him at that level. As rookie here, he played pretty well. I think the Cincinnati game hurt him a little bit. Last year he was hurt, wasn't at the same level. But the ability of Tennessee to look at him and say, you know something, let's use you in a variety of roles. I think that works well for him. His game is based on instincts, being around the football, anticipating where it's going before it gets there. And it looked to me like in the two practices I've seen, he's a lot more confident player this year. He is around the football again. He knows where it's going. And he's there to help make a play. I think that's a good spot for him to be able to be more of a rover, safety, nickel, you know, corn, wherever you want to put him. I think that's a good spot for him. That second area as a whole throughout the beginning of training camp has really looked like they've had more confidence just almost as a unit. They're playing harder. They're playing faster. They're moving around. And it seems like there's a level of confidence, even though for the most part, it's a fairly young group of guys. But they seem like they have elevated their game a little bit to meet some of the challenges that maybe they were experiencing at the end of the 22 season. And a lot of that was just due to injury. Yeah, I would agree with that. I would agree with that. I would think that Chris Harris coming in is a big deal for them as a new defensive backs coach, different eyes, different voice, different way of doing things, but understand what they do well, give them some confidence. I know this is a team that really likes guys who have something to prove. Sean Murphy bunting, would sure like to get back to that level of the Super Bowl in Tampa where he was a monster in the playoffs and into the Super Bowl. He wants to get back and play at that level. Christian Fulton feels like people continue to doubt him. He looks bigger, stronger, more explosive out on the corner. Kevin Byard, we all know about the offseason contract. This is where he wants to be. But I'm sure he'd like to say, well, you know something. I'm pretty valuable here. Plus, he's the guy who leads that secondary. And Imani Hooker's just steady. I like this team. I like them a lot. And I like the way that they play with the cohesion. But the way Kevin Byard handled the offseason lets you know that there's a maturity back there that you're covered with. And I think that he feels unlike I would go back to what? 2019, 2020, where maybe he won't admit it and he shouldn't. But he might not have trusted everyone to do their jobs the way they were supposed to. He was trying to do too much. And he was trying to do everyone else's in addition to his own. He didn't have to do that anymore. He hadn't had to do that the last couple of seasons. And he's back being Kevin Byard again. Interesting point. I want you to go back to talk about Chris Harris for a second. Comes over from Washington. Big time get for the defensive staff, which didn't have the massive shake-up the offensive staff did. But Mike Vrable felt like he needed to change the voice in the secondary. What are they getting in Chris Harris? They're getting guy. Look, enthusiasm is always the first thing we always say. That's such a cliche. Oh, he's enthusiastic. And you play for Ron Zook. That's enthusiasm that's off the charts. There's no way you can reign that part in. But you're also getting a guy that has trained eyes, can look at what he's saying, and now see these players in a different light because they've been judged by other people who may have seen them day in, day out. What's the old expression for us for the trees? Right. We can get lost in there a little bit. I know what he can do. I know what he can do. And sometimes you just see that even if it's not actually happening. And I'm not saying that's what happened with the previous coach. But sometimes that can happen with him. Oh, well, I see you this way. I see you this way. I see this improvement needed. I see that improvement needed. I always remember the famous story when Mike Tomlin was a young secondary coach. And he goes to Tampa Bay. And he takes over there. He's pretty young and the whole deal. And he calls John Lynch in and says, hey, here's some that have been watching you on tape. Here's some things I want you to work on and give him a list of things. And John Lynch kind of walked out. What was this guy? John Lynch was an all pro, pro bowl, eventual hall of fame safety. Just getting to know this young defensive backs coach. And he's admitted, you know, he kind of had it dialed in. And once I got my ego out of the way, here we go. And he got better. I'm not saying that's what Chris Harris is doing. But I think there are some elements of that where he can come in and say, listen, you don't know me. I don't know you. But watching your play clinically without us knowing each other, this is what I see. And now if those guys are receptive, you can get better at it. Oh, but a Titans checking account from Pinnacle with at least $100 and a recurring direct deposit by August the 18th. And you could get two tickets to five Titans home games. It's pretty good. Or you could steal another Snickers like Charles Davis is doing right now. He's being so gentle with the lid, too. It's really just nice. Details at titansbanking.com. That's titansbanking.com. Checking from Pinnacle Playhard Bank Easy Member, FDIC. Charles Davis is with us. Who's your first game? And with CBS? Yes. CBS. Cincinnati at Cleveland. How about that? What if I told you Cleveland's my surprise team? I would not be surprised. I would not be surprised. And only because I feel the same way. There it is. Feel the same way. It's a better roster than what people know. Last year should be a Mulligan year for them because their season was over as soon as the Sean Watson suspension was announced. As soon as they said 11 games, we're done here. No offense to Jacobi Bresset. But the season went right there. You were kind of done because it wasn't a six game suspension where you say, OK, we hold the four. Get out of here three and three and see if we can get our quarterback back and go. You're talking about 11 games. It was over by the time he got there. And the thing about an NFL suspension that some forget is you're gone. You're gone. You're not in the building. You're not practicing. You're not in contact with the team in any way shape or form. And so he's coming in, having not played in two years. And I know he played in the preseason, but that doesn't count. That doesn't count. But he's cold. And he looked cold. And then you started to see a couple of the moments. You're like, OK, it's still in there. Yeah, it's still there. They're good on defense. Really good on defense. And they changed coordinators. Now you have Jim Schwartz. So now Miles Garrett, who is a beast to begin with, then they go out and make a deal and get Zadarius Harris. OK? No, this is Zadarius Smith. Excuse me, Zadarius Smith. A terrific pass, rusher in Green Bay in Minnesota. Now he comes to Cleveland. Guess what? Miles Garrett now has a bookend. How loyal they felt. They were getting that with Genevieve and Clowney. They really didn't get exactly what they wanted. And Harris, excuse me, Smith has the great ability to work inside in those nickel and sub packages where he'll rush over the guards and use his quickness that way. Jim Schwartz's coach defenses do one thing really well. They rush the pass. Heat it up. And how does he ask them to do it? Front four pressure. He wants his back seven to be able to cover, do other things. He's not a big blitzer. He's not all that he has. Titans fans know he's been here as a consultant. He's been here as a tremendous defensive coordinator. He's still got it. Philadelphia. What we saw last year in the Super Bowl, that's remnants of Jim Schwartz watching him go, although they added a little more pressure from the backers. But if he can get that front four plan at that level, the back seven has great talent. That roster is way better than what people think. Offense, defense, and by the way, they didn't have a draft pick until the third round.  I think that Andrew Berry, their GM, does a great job. People are talking about his chemist to fans getting on the hot seat as the head coach. I'm like, I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think they are a good coach. I think again from the outside, maybe, but last year is a mulligan year. You're coaching a team that your quarterback that you paid all that money for isn't there. I think they've got a chance to be a surprise team, but they will have to prove it. I believe three of their first four games are within their own division. Well, and the one that's not, Tennessee in week three. We go there in week three. And I think it's a very, I mean, you look at us. We go to New Orleans and, I mean, Derek Carr is a quarterback. We know him. We've played against him, but what are they going to look like? They're trying to figure that out. OK. So then in week two, the Chargers come here. And they're really, really good. And after how they sort of went down the tubes in Jacksonville last year, you've got to figure they're going to be motivated.   So tough first four for the tight. It really is. And it's interesting. You've got Cleveland and Cincinnati so early. And the AFC North from what I've seen in their schedules, they're playing a lot of their division games early in the season against each other. So trying to win your own division or focus on division games, how will they react outside of the division? That's going to be fun to watch and see how it goes. Look, if you're an NFL fan, I think we all drew a sigh of relief when we saw the Joe Burrow, when they said calf strain, as opposed to what we thought when we saw the video. Because when we first saw the video, look like Achilles. They look like Achilles. You know, people were thinking ACL at first, but we realized, OK, that just looks bad. Thank goodness it's a calf strain, although if you don't handle it right, it can linger all year long. But he should be OK. And as a football fan, I'm excited about that, because you want to see the better players try. Absolutely. Charles, as you are getting ready for football season, other than preparing for obviously the Tennessee Titans games, which you will be a part of for the entire preseason, which we love, how do you kind of hone in? Because you do so many different games and there's so much NFL news, the National Football League is a big place and there's a lot going on.  How do you even process that? It's a great question, Amy. I'm not sure that I have the true answer for it. What I try to do is just take it week to week and focus in that way. I feel like a true NFL player or coach right now, we just take them game by game. Oh, wow. We just take it week to week, play by play, day by day. Right? Does that not sound like every press conference we've ever seen at some point that rolls out, but it's the only way I can do it, because otherwise I'm going to conflate things. I know people who are able to study and do extras along the way. Like if you know your schedule, they'll work on the first three games. I still only work on my season open. I know my first threat, but I will do some surface stuff up until a certain point, probably about 10 days before the first game and then it's all Cleveland and Cincinnati. And as soon as that game is over, on my flight home from Cleveland, I will start work. I have a book that I get of articles and clippings and notes and all that, that I will on the plane as soon as we take off, I start working on my second game. So I'll be working at Kansas City, Jacksonville, but nothing before then, because I just can't bring it all in there. I have a little bit of Winnie the Pooh brain, you know, bear of little brain. What little I have needs to be focused on whatever is in front of me right at that moment. Your broadcast partner, Ion Eagle, has a hundred different things going on at the same time. He's unbelievable. How does he do it? I would love to know. And what I would really like to do is follow him around for about two weeks during all that time. But I don't know if I could keep up because he's doing an NBA game, a national game. He's doing an NBA Brooklyn Nets game. He's doing a CBS NFL game. And then he's back to another one. And it's amazing, absolutely amazing. He has that ability that in the better ones that we know can do it. I would say we'd say that about the best play-by-play people we know compartmentalize and then bring it all out. I tell you one of the people, Kenny Albert, if you're spending time with Kenny, just a little, just to say hello, Kenny's a cyborg. Okay, there is no ifs ands or buts about it. The late, great Tony Sierra Goose had worked with Kenny all those years, Moose Goose and Kenny, right? That great team that they had. And I remember I was working with Goose on the one season we worked together and he looked at me one day and he goes, to Charles, you know something? You're pretty good on this football thing. You know a lot of stuff. He said, but you know something? You're not Kenny Albert. And I was like, okay, I'm not trying to compete with Kenny. He goes, Kenny's a cyborg. And so, okay, cool. That's great, Goose, right? So I ended up working with Kenny. Now this is stuck in my head. I'm a competitor. I was like, okay, we're gonna find this out, aren't we? We were sitting in our room. You know, a lot of times you have a room that you're studying in at the hotel. And baseball was on the baseball playoffs.  And so I pipe up with the old, well, you know, back in the old days, they would have grabbed the ball and looked to see if there was shoe polish on it. Cause in the old days, everyone wore black shoes. And oftentimes if God would say, I got hit and they say, you didn't get hit. They grabbed the ball. Oh, there's a smudge of shoe polish. First base, there you go. And so I thought, yeah, that's pretty good. Right through that one out there. And Kenny goes, oh yeah, it's like the 51 series with the Giants when Dusty Rhodes got hit by a pitch and it changed the whole course of the series and the whole thing. And I knew this story, but he rolled it out so easily. I was like, ah, so I grabbed my stuff, packed up. Night, and I went up to my room, and I stared the ceiling all night. And I went, Goose, you're right. Kenny Albert's a cyborg. He's amazing. We did a Green Bay, New Orleans game. And something really crazy happened. I can't remember exactly what it was. It's something that only happened once in two Blue Moons. And we ended up documenting it and the whole thing. And we were getting information on it, and the whole thing gets put together. We rolled it out. Kenny and I do it. I'm like, OK, great. There's my small contribution. Kenny's got it. And then the end, Kenny goes into an extra. And then on top of it, the last time, somebody with the last letter Z played in the game, I mean, just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And it all tied in perfectly to that. And he does that, and I punch into the truck. I say, hey, who fed Kenny that? And everybody's like, no one. Kenny just knew it. That's Kenny Albert. Wow. Wow. I have, as you can tell, my admiration for him is off the charts. And he's the best hockey guy going right now. Oh, he's fantastic. He's absolutely phenomenal. There isn't a thing he can't do. And if you ask him who he, if you did the hockey game in the 1988 Olympics, and Kenny did it, and you said Czechoslovakia versus Sweden, who scored the winning goal? He said, oh, well, this guy scored a winning goal. But it was set up by, and he would have all the extras. He's that good. Lars, somebody or other. Yeah, he would have it, and probably know their hometown and where they came from. You know why he's so good? Because I'm sure he drinks a lot of Duncan and concentrates on somebody who's concentrating right to the brain. Exactly right. Hey, remember Titans fans? It's always game on with Duncan. So grab a coffee and kick off the action. And it's perfect this Saturday because kickoff in Chicago is noon. It's a brunch game, if you will. So perfect for coffee. Drinking a cup of coffee on your way to the game or grabbing one to go before watching the game with Paul Burmeister, Charles Davis, and Corey Curtis at home locally on WKRN in Nashville. Duncan is always there to help you get your game on. Just like the pros, like Paul Burmeister and Charles Davis and Corey Curtis, we need to be at our best come game time, which is why Duncan is the most important part of your game day ritual because it's always the best call for football. America runs on Duncan. And we'll be drinking iced coffee on Saturday in the booth in Chicago. You know, they have really good iced coffee. Just a bit on the warm side. So there will be plenty of ice, but we will be Duncan. And we have Snickers. Charles has four Snickers. Amy has completed. Amy has none. It is gone. This is a good sponsorship for them. I think this is going to work out. I think it's going to work out fine. Send more bars. I'm just going to tell you, I'm all in. And I didn't even know I was a part of it. But I am in. You thought you were getting paid. Well, you are. Four snickers. I am all in. Congratulations. Look forward to seeing you in Chicago. Yes, can't wait to see you guys in Chicago. And congratulations to you guys getting ready for another Titan season. Here we go. Extra congratulations to you, young lady. Thank you. I'm so happy for you and your family. This is going to be wonderful. We have our second beautiful Amy Wells child. Me too. Hatter. You cannot wait for that. Hatter to the roster. It's just going to be great. And babysitter extraordinaire sitting right here to your left. Calling you up every time you're in town. You're obligated to hit your quota of babysitting hours. Call the reliever in. Call the left-hander. For Charles Davidson, Amy Wells, I'm Mike Keith. And this is the OTP. Run to Chicago. Run to Chicago. Woo!


Hey guys, welcome to the first episode of This Week in Hyrule, I'm Matt and your Weekly News Recap starts now. Hello everybody, I hope you're all having a wonderful day. Now let's kick things off with some news that's not exactly Zelda specific but is definitely going to affect all of us Nintendo fans. As of Thursday, March 31st, my Nintendo has officially gone live in North America and Europe. The replacement for Club Nintendo, this program lets users earn points to spend on things like discounts on the eShop. The full list of rewards for North America and Europe have been made available and you can check them out on zeldinformer.com. My Nintendo's launch coincides with the release of Mi Tomo, Nintendo's social messaging mobile app. Alright, now that that's out of the way, let's bring out the actual Zelda news. Who here likes geeky toys? The folks at Jack's Pacific have unveiled their new wave of world of Nintendo figures, including some very cool looking Zelda figures. We've got Toon Link, Princess Zelda, Skull Kid, Tingle, and both a bronze and shadow Link. All the figures are 4 inches tall, except for Tingle who is only 2.5 inches tall. The figures will be made available this spring and fall all for around $9.99 US, except once again for Tingle who will only be about $4.99. For more specific info check out our article on zeldinformer. Speaking of Tingle, he apparently had a much larger role in the story of Hyrule Warriors Legends, but his part ended up getting cut. Or Tingle. I think I need some love. But we do have some really cool additions to Hyrule Warriors in the form of DLC characters. Several DLC packs are coming out for everyone's favorite Zelda-themed Spectacle Fighter, A Link Between Worlds, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, and Link's Awakening are all getting the DLC treatment. Recently however it was revealed what playable character we'll be getting in the Link's Awakening DLC pack. None other than the lovely Marin. Details are sparse right now all we have is this piece of concept art, but the design looks great and I can't wait to see what she can do. Alright well that wraps it up for news, so let's check out those caption contest and photoshop entries. This past week we had you guys captioning this photo from an alleged screen test for a 1998 Disney Zelda movie. Great entries all around, but my favorite was this one by Infonova because I will take any opportunity to hate on Navi. For the photoshop contest, all you talented artists took a shot at coming up with a Zelda boss. A lot of creativity on display this week. My personal favorite was Adrian Cornejo's entry, I love the idea of a boss that's watching you the whole time, that you might even be able to see, but you can't do anything about it until you open that final door. Very cool. Well that about does it for me, if you want any more information on the stories discussed in this video you can check out the links in the description. Keep it locked to Zelda Informer for all your Zelda news, I'm Matt and this was your week in Hyrule.


Hello and welcome back to yet another GCSE revision lesson now One of the common complaints that I get from a lot of you guys who watch my videos on this channel Is that some of my videos a little bit too long? Okay? It's all well and good kind of knowing how to pass language paper one But kind of me going over a question in 20 plus minutes. It's a little bit too long for you guys Okay, so I've listened to some of the feedback and what I want to do in this video today Is to actually give you a summary of Question number four in the language paper one and I want to summarize it in a nutshell within five minutes Okay, so I want to show you guys within five minutes what you should expect of question before and the four steps You should take when approaching this question consistently in the language paper one exams now always begin with the end in mind Okay, number one always remember that this question in a paper one is worth 20 marks It's worth half of the marks available for section eight in language paper one and remember that it always tests your area for your Evaluation skills do you agree with a student statement? Do you partly agree or do you disagree? The exam doesn't tend to care that much whether you agree or whether you disagree or so one It's more about the quality of your discussion and the analysis and the techniques that you refer to when you're either Agreeing partly agreeing or disagreeing a good way is to approach this is you could maybe sit in the middle Right and use some tentative language like perhaps the student is right because of this However, they might equally perhaps not be completely right because of this other technique Okay, you can do that or maybe just make your life easier and agree with the statement because the student statement never tends to Contradict what's going on in the extract that's step number one for Approaching question number four of the language paper one exam now question number two It will rather step number two is try to pick at least three quotations from the extract You were given to evaluate make sure that the quotations are not next to each other Okay, work through the entire part of this extract and it's always from the second half of the extract You're not told to look at the whole source. It's always the second half to the end Okay, so of course when you're going through and selecting your quotations pick something from the middle Something from closer to the end and then something else from closer to the end or two things from right at the end of the Passage, okay? And of course make sure you make references to language and structure and how this supports the student statement Or doesn't support or why you partly agree now the third step in answering question number four is My suggestion is a good chunk of writing would be at least three or four pure paragraphs when I say pure paragraphs I mean point evidence explanation link now as you're working and writing your response move through the extract Chronologically your first pill paragraph would be from the early part of the middle Your second pill paragraph would be from slightly later on in the middle Your third pill paragraph could be closer to the end and then your fourth and final pill paragraph could be taken to the end And remember that the second E in your pill paragraph should be super developed This is where the bulk of your marks are okay So you need to add lots of techniques and obviously go into lots of depth analyzing and developing the Explanation within each of your pill paragraphs now the fourth and final step is always have some go-to Language and structure techniques that you should anticipate will show up in any Fiction extract that you've presented with in terms of my go-to techniques Which I always recommend to my students is in terms of language go for and look for as you're reading the extract You're similarly metaphor alliteration imagery and your semantic field That's language however you go to structure techniques should be repetition listing your one word sentence as well as zooming in or zooming out and Just supposing what might happen in the middle of the extract versus the end of the extract Those should be your go-to structural techniques. So I've tried to keep this to five minutes long I hope this helps in terms of summarizing question number four in language for one in a nutshell. Thanks so much for listening


We've come to 30 days of kindness. We're going to share a new kindness prompt. Every day! These will be little acts of kindness. We'll be challenging you to do. We might try these too. Yeah! We look forward to hearing how you got on. Leave a comment or a like. Today's day three. Pay a compliment out loud. If you like someone's coat or shoes or hair, tell them, don't just think it. We hoped you liked today's prompt. We can't wait to hear how you get on. Leave a comment or a like. Comments make us smile. Good luck and see you tomorrow. Bye!


So, let us come back to optimization problems again. So, as I said, the way we write optimization problems, you write F which is your objective function and then we can write it as such that X belongs to a set S. So, F is called the objective function and S is called the feasible way. Now, usually this sort of way of writing an optimization problem is not very conducive for many things for both analysis as well as for computation. So, when you write that X belongs to some set, how do you even specify that set becomes a question? What does it mean that it belongs to this set? Usually a set is a collection of points, but you cannot list out all the points in the set. Usually there will be infinitely many. So, you have to describe the set in a certain way. So, the way we describe it is that we say we will put a bunch of conditions that X must satisfy. You do not actually list out all the points, but rather only list out the conditions that X must satisfy. So, the way we write it is that we write as you minimize function F such that gi of X is less than equal to 0 for all i ranging from say 1 to m and j of X is equal to 0 for all j say ranging from 1 to p. So, now you have defined an optimization problem using some additional functions. You have of course your objective function, but then you also have all these functions. These functions, so here just like F, these are functions gi and hj they are both, they are also functions from rn to r and they are called, these are referred to as constraints. Now, you can see that I have classified the constraints in a written them in a certain specific way and I have classified them into these two categories. First is that I have written out separately constraints that have less than equal to on type of requirement and another type of other constraints which have a equal to type requirement. Everything that is a less than equal to can be also written as a greater than equal to by just multiplying both sides by minus 1. So, that is not, so I do not need to separately write also a greater than equal to this. Can you, so sorry, so the less than equal to constraints, the ones that have a less than, that are to be satisfied with the less than equal to sort of requirement, these sort of constraints are called inequality constraints and the ones that are to be satisfied with equality, these are called equality constraints. Now, can someone tell me, is it possible for me to reduce everything to my problem further and write it only in terms of inequality constraints? I want to write my problem only in terms of inequality constraints. So, how do I do that? So, this is, that is the correctization, so you can, the requirement that h of j of x is equal to 0, this is equivalent actually to two different requirements, one that h j of x should be less than equal to 0 and also the, and remember both, and h j of x minus h j of x is also less, should also be less than equal to 0. So, if this and this whole, then this, so if h j of x is both less than equal to 0 and minus h j of x is also less than equal to 0, then h j of x is should be equal to 0. So, it is therefore possible to collapse this problem even further and get rid of also the equality constraints and write them as two opposing inequality constraints. However, we generally do not tend to do that and there is a good reason for this. The main reason is that the geometry of the problem is very different with the geometry of an inequality constraint is very different from that of a equality constraint. And so that is the thing I want to first, I want to sensitize you to. So, let us suppose we have, we have suppose a, say a constraint like this, say gi of x is suppose equal to negative of x minus some a the whole square. Now if gi of x is something like this, is this sort of function x minus a the whole square, then what is the region and suppose we are, so suppose we are taking this from R n to R n, so let us write this as gi of x as x minus some norm of x minus a the whole square where a is some vector in R n. So, you are fixing some vector a and then looking at this as a function of x minus negative of norm of x minus a the whole square. So, now gi of x less than equal to 0, I want to look at this region. So, I am going to look at this in this is my space R n, this is suppose my point a in that space. So, then what are all the points x such that gi of x is less than equal to 0, what are all the points? All the points, so this is actually the full space. So, let us change this, so let us suppose we have, I can instead of taking a norm of this, let us do, so I have fixed some R greater than 0, I have fixed the a in R n, I am looking at the function gi of x which is norm of x minus a the whole square minus R. Now tell me what, here is my point a, tell me what sort of region satisfies gi of x less than equal to 0. So, this is a sphere of radius R centered at a. So, this is this entire region. What if I had if I had a function h j of x is norm of x minus a the whole square minus R and I look for the region h j of x equal to 0. What sort of x's are these? This is only the shell. So, now let us, can you tell me what is the difference in these two regions? The first region is does the first, both of these sets are actually closed set. The shell itself is a closed set, the ball of radius R centered at a, with its shell is also a closed set. But the key difference is that the ball of radius R centered at a, that also has its interior included in it. Now whether the interior is, when we write an inequality constraint, we are, inequality constraint we are, what is effectively happening is that we are considering both the shell as well as the region inside it. So, as a consequence, it is implicit in the problem that what you have defined is a region. Whereas when you are talking of an equality constraint, what you have defined is really a surface. The geometry of these two is very different and this will become clearer as we go further into the course. So, the main region is that an optimization problem behaves very differently when the task of optimizing is very different from whether you are in the interior or whether you are on the boundary.  So, your algorithm or whatever methodology you have allows you to explore in every possible direction. Where once you reach the boundary, there are only certain directions in which you can go and you have to worry about whether you are violating this or violating that. So, there is a phase change that happens when you go from interior to boundary. When we are right, that is why all methods, it is always a good idea both from a computational and analytical standpoint to know whether your constraint is truly an inequality constraint or truly an equality constraint and that is the reason why we separate these two always. Yes, it does not matter. It is a way, this will be a ball of radius, I guess square root of R, my mistake. Let me get rid of that. Now, there are other types of constraints. So, let me mention this. So, let me, so there are other types of constraints, constraints which I have, which, so for example, you can write constraints that are, for example, what can be said are bound constraints. Bound constraints means they just look at a specific variable, say X1, one variable and specify bounds on that variable saying that this variable cannot exceed a certain value capital M and cannot be greater than a certain other values. Smaller. Now, when you have bound constraints like these, you can of course think of these as two different inequality constraints, but then bound constraints are often required, the method or the type of solution algorithm you are employing, it again needs to know if there is a bound constraint. Usually that is needed and that again will become evident to you because the fact that there are, this will, if you do write this as two different inequality constraints, it will look like two different opposing inequalities of the same kind just with a different right hand side. So, it will look to the algorithm as if you have written one inequality like this and another inequality like this and this can lead to some problems. So, to avoid this, sometimes algorithms ask you to specify this separately. So, these are called bound constraints. For analysis, this usually does not matter. So, we do not, we can always absorb these as inequality constraints. There are other, there is another type of constraints which are constraints that are often either all type. So, either all type of constraints. So, when I wrote out these constraints, remember these M inequality constraints and P equality constraints, all of these constraints, remember that we want all of these to be satisfied. It is not that we have any of these or one of these or whatever. The requirement is that all of these have to be, this is a full list of things that you need to satisfy. Now, it is slightly different type of constraint will arise when I tell you that satisfy either this or that. That is a different type of constraint. Now, that also can be modeled in this sort of form, but it takes a lot of effort. You will see if you can teach that later in the course. Those are either all type constraints. And even more complicated type of constraint is then you do either or and then take a decision on top of that. So, then you, so it is if then else type of constraint. If something is satisfied, then you do this else, if that is not satisfied, then you do that. So, that would be an if then else type. We will get to this, we will look at these later in the course. So, for the moment, just we will be working with only inequality and equality constraint. So, from an engineering standpoint, we should remember that usually these, the way these arise is that, you know, an equality constraint is a hard, is a hard constraint says that this function has to be 0. So, and so value, so and so must be, so and so value is, so and so bunch of variables must satisfy a certain hard requirement. This sort of hard requirement usually comes from physical, from the physical nature of the problem. It is a, it is a law of nature that for instance that something must be equal to something. Whereas the inequality constraint is usually a human requirement. You do not want to be, you are, you have a certain tolerance for, you do not want delay to exceed a certain amount, you do not want price to exceed a certain amount, you do not want area to exceed a certain amount, etc.  So, that is how you, so these, the inequality constraints usually arise out of human specification. Okay. So, I will, we will stop here now.