Welcome. Thanks to all of you that have decided to join us here today, either live or watching the recording, another episode of the nonprofit show. Today we're sitting down with Bill Schwab, CPA with your part-time controller, which we often refer to as YPTC because everyone always loves a good acronym. But Bill's here to shed some light on using dashboards and visualizations for your NPO, another acronym, nonprofit organization. Thanks to Julia Patrick, who came up with this wonderful platform. She serves as the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I'm honored that I haven't gotten fired yet, just kidding, but I really do love these conversations. I was really thrilled when she reached out to me in March of 2020 and said, hey, I have this wackadoo idea. Would you love to do it? And I said, yes, as the nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven group, I would be more than happy to fill in and help you as the co-host of the show. And we've done about 600 episodes now, Bill. Honestly, our 600th is coming up next month, actually next week. And we could not do it without our sponsors, including your part-time controller. So thank you so much for that, as well as our other presenting sponsors, which include Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy, that's with the National University, Nonprofit Nerds, Staffing Boutique, and the Nonprofit Thought Leader. And again, another shout out to your part-time controller because we're just so honored to have these colleagues joining us from around the nation, you know, sharing some really high level conversations. If you missed any of YPTC's conversations with us or any of our other guests, you can find those episodes on Roku, Fire TV, YouTube, and Vimeo.  Bill, as I mentioned, you are back again, so you're not a new face, you're not a new voice, but this is a new conversation. So I'm excited to have you back. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Thanks for having me back. It's great. And congrats almost on episode 600. That is fantastic. Yes, thank you.  Tell those that are watching and listening a little bit about your part-time controller, what you offer as the nonprofit counting specialist across the nation. So if they're new and they say, hey, I don't think I've heard this acronym before, tell them a little bit about YPTC. Oh, thank you.  Our whole business model is right in the name. So we are accounting and financial specialists focused on functioning as outsourced controllers and CFOs exclusively for the nonprofit community. So of course, that's why we're so excited to be here on the nonprofit show. But also, you know, of course, I'm a CPA, but now I get to, in my role at YPTC, like sit at what I call like this intersection of accounting and technology. So where accounting and technology meets using technology to make our clients' lives easier, their processes easier. And then as we're going to talk about today, using visual images to help tell clients' financial stories as well. Yeah. Thank you for that. I always think of your part-time controller as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow because, truly, Bill, like there are so many accounting companies, but there's not many that truly dedicate in the nonprofit sector. And I have seen too many budgets misallocated and just, you know, run amok because they didn't have that dedicated your part-time controller focus and lens in the sector. So thank you for joining us and sharing a little bit about that. So we're going to get super nerdy, and I love that Julia put these glasses here because, you know, I am certainly known for my nerdy glasses as well, but we're going to dive into how people see these numbers in these graphic elements. So take it away, Bill, as the data visualization expert. How do people see numbers in graphic elements? Sure. No, thank you. So it's all about, you know, we always say, right, what's the old adage? A picture is worth a thousand words, right? So there's a lot of ways to present information visually, to interpret information visually. But honestly, you know, we say, we actually say, you know, very often times when it comes to presenting numbers, less is actually more. You know, a lot of folks when they're creating a graph, and we see this internally even because we have, you know, my team, we do a whole training program just on how to present compelling visual images to your clients. You don't need to cram every little number into your graph. And we have a saying where like every mark helps or hurts, right? So only put it in there if it's going to emphasize the point or tell the story, you know, that you're trying to tell. So it's not, it's not so much to say, we've got to put every number in here. What's important to say is, well, let's think about what the most important number is. And I think, and I know you have a slide that speaks to this a little bit later on about information overload. But really it comes back to, and it's as simple as saying, what, where do you want your audience to direct their attention, right? And that's, it's as simple as that. It's where, you know, where, where in that graphic do you want your audience to look where on the page, and it can be a very simple visual image that does that as opposed to a graph that's got, you know, 50 or 100 numbers on it. Thank you for that. You know, I always feel like, and we are going to talk about information overload. Our guest yesterday was a marketing representative with websites and he shared, you know, kind of these vanity numbers and then these so what numbers and so I love that you said numbers are either going to help or hurt. I'm so curious, do you share the same graphics, quarterly, like quarter, quarter after quarter month after month, like, are you sticking with those same graphics and just updating the data. So it depends the short answer is yes and no. So sometimes we'll design a graphic and we and we had this situation for a client where we designed a graphic and it was meant to be a one time just storytelling graphic in this case it was mentioning during during the pandemic, when a client you know they were they were forced to cancel a lot of in person events and things of that nature but but through that it highlighted that okay yes you know you're you know your contributions or your event revenue is going down, but you're actually generating a lot more revenue from service fees and other, you know, other revenue stream so what was originally designed to be kind of a one time storytelling graphic that we put in front of the leadership and the board. They actually looked at that and said, Oh, this is a good thing right service fee revenues a good thing we want to grow service fee revenue. And now let's take this what was meant to be a one time chart and kind of change it a little bit to now look at our progress towards growing service fee revenue so then every month, we, we, you know we did an update to say yep here's, here's where you are here's how it's growing here's how close you're getting to your target so what what may have been intended or what might be intended is just a one time graph. In some cases might stay that way or in some cases might evolve into into something that's then presented on an ongoing basis either in the same or or a new format. Great example and every time I sit around a board table bill I notice that you know narrative versus a chart or some kind of a visualization of a graph. There's there's way more dialogue actually that happens around that chart and that data visualization than the paragraph that sits next to it. Absolutely, absolutely. And we take, you know, we actually, you know, in internally within yptc and we actually, you know, we have an explicit standard that we that we follow and we train our staff on. But part of that includes, yeah the graph is important, but it's more important to say what the graph is telling you right like thinking newspaper we actually refer to it as a headline you know don't just say, you see a lot of graphs that say actual versus budget, well that doesn't tell me anything, whereas, you know, a good headline might say, hey, our, you know, our building expenses are way over budget. So before you even get to the graph, you know what the story is that it's telling and I think I think that's why some data visualizations might be difficult for people it's not because they don't understand the numbers but a lot of visualizations don't tell you ahead of time or don't announce what the reader should take away from it. Right. No, those are great examples and you had mentioned earlier data overload. Right. When do we reach this information or this data overload because I'm sure you've seen it where people just glaze over their eyes glass over. When do we know we've reached that. I think it goes back to, you know, the point you know what we what we talked about earlier when I said you know you don't need to put every number into the graph. And I think, you know, I think that's, you know that that's obviously a fine line to walk but you know really it's you reach that point where if if you're not.  It's okay to tell the reader exactly what the takeaway is I mean I tell our staff this if if you read the headline of the graph, and you read maybe the little bit of narrative text under it. The next item you're going to get to is the graph itself but even if you don't look at the graph you should still be able to know what the story is just by reading that headline and that interpretation. The numbers the graph, the graph is there to support the story you're telling in the headline.  That's where you're getting to that data overload point you don't need to do that you use the graph itself to support the story you're telling but really it's that headline and interpretation that that that that speak to the the story that needs to be told to the reader. I really appreciate the headline and the, the, you know, a comparison to the newspaper, because I can see that really directing the conversation there's no ability to interpret it in a different way. So, could you, would you really dive into interpretation a little bit more and how you've maybe seen these graphs and charts being interpreted differently. Sure, absolutely.  Or maybe even, you know, they've they've picked up on it through through conversations with their clients because we tell our staff or like listen listen for clues because a client may not know that they need a graphic or that a graphic might be useful. And just in the questions they're asking you, they might be asking for one without even realizing it, you know, like maybe an executive director is saying, Hey, I'm reviewing the financials and, and, and these numbers here, you know, we really need to the board needs to know about this or we need to highlight this for the board, or a board member might be saying hey I'm looking at these numbers. So a certain amount of cash is is that enough is it too much is it too little. All those are great questions that can be answered by by by a graphic. And are these graphics and the data visualization, could they be used with various stakeholders because I'm thinking what a fantastic way to share that same story in a visual element with staff for them to better understand. Are they intended for multiple stakeholder groups. They certainly can be and it's funny we kind of train our staff on that you know we say look if you create a graphic. You have to assume it might get shared right so make sure it either has all those elements we were talking about right it's got that headline the interpretation the graphic. Either has all those elements or it doesn't if one's missing we're like hey it's not going to hang together because if it gets copied. If it gets copied and pasted and moved somewhere else, whoever that graphic had whoever that graphic lands in front of it's got to have all those pieces so that that new recipient has has all of those elements as well. But we actually you know we've had clients that have have come to us and said you know they've told us they're like look we actually want to build graphics that that we're going to show publicly. You know whether it's on their website maybe it's in their annual reports. So it absolutely. You know we always kind of keep in the back of our mind that you have to assume and and and certainly embrace I think the fact that every graphic could potentially be used and be useful to multiple stakeholders both inside and outside the organization. That's very wise because nowadays right information is shared so freely so publicly so easily. And then I also really appreciate that impact report or annual report of how you can continue to repurpose possibly repackage. Of course you know one of our live viewers here today bill you mentioned is on your data visualization group with yptc. How large is this group within your organization there. Yeah, so thank you so yeah so we have a group of five full time folks just within yptc who focus on all things data visualization. But we also have and when I say part time not that they're part time staff to yptc but they split their time between doing client service work. So the work that I started out at yptc yptc doing being one of our associates and serving our clients so they split their time between doing client service work and work for for data visualization so all told. We have seven staff members who in some capacity are dedicated to data visualization but we're we're in the process where we're actually in the process we have an internal training program on visualization that that is is being rolled out to all of our client facing staff. So that is fan tastic I love hearing that because you know this is something we need more of and more people to understand it. I can also imagine that some people say data is scary. So what are the keys to making data or data tomato tomato less fearful tell us what these keys might be. It's all about. I think probably the most important thing is is the reader in like you want to grab their attention and and and say hey come in there's great data here it's not something to it's not something to be afraid of and and and we actually you know I mentioned our training program that we do internally we actually we show that as a comparison with with with two doors. The first one we say you know is your data for voting or is it inviting and for for voting. We use you know we use the example of a prison we show a big prison with a large wall and a gate and we say right that's an example of something that's for voting but it's supposed to be right you don't want you're not meant to feel welcome. Obviously that's you know when you look at it when you look at a graph if that's your takeaway. You've probably missed the mark right you want to be able to invite the reader in so so the opposite side of that is we have this you know this picture of a friendly looking door with a you know and some some nice flowers and and say hey that that's what you want right and invite the reader and we do that to help you know to help make the data accessible. It really comes back to you know it really comes back to how the data looks right and I mentioned that headline that interpretation keeping it simple not not showing more information than you need to on the graph it helps draw the reader in but also help direct their attention to right because you know you and I certainly both both know this Jarrett you know executive directors board members. They all have one thing in common and that is they're probably all short on time right so so you've got to get in. Make your point and and make it explicitly and say this this remember those questions I asked right and if an executive director saying hey these stats we have to trumpet these to the board well make make your point right. Yeah, no I appreciate that. You know I have to ask this elephant in the room question. Should we as nonprofit leaders truly be highlighting and sharing only headlines that are positive, or can we also share those, you know in six months at this burn rate, our doors are closed. It's we've, if that's the story to be told, and that's the story that needs to be put in front of the board, you absolutely cannot and should not shy away from that and we've, you know we've certainly had, you know, clients where we've developed graphics for that have told that story. And, you know, we try to do it in such a way to say you know yes here's here's the forecast you know maybe maybe it's a cash flow forecast, and we'll say look based on current assumptions current trends. This is where things are looking, you know this is where things things are possibly trending over the next six to 12 months, but try to do it in such a way that's also offering alternatives right saying okay well if you know you know here's here's possible different, you know different options you know maybe there's some, you know some grants at the organization's going after well if you get that grant here's here's what that outcome looks like so you know they're there certainly it's it's never, you know it's never a situation where we only I mean we'd love it right we'd love it if if all we had to deliver to our clients was was good news but sometimes unfortunately there's some some some not so good news to tell, but I think a you know because it all comes back again to how the graphic is presented and the fact that the graphic, I think, can help tell the impactful story to say yes here's the situation here's what the organization or your organization is potentially facing over the next six to 12 months, but now let's talk about how we can address it and what some alternatives are to help address it. Sure. Thank you for that because I you know, I know we don't want to be doom and gloom but sometimes we need to face that reality and share the stark sobering you know data of this is where we are. I mentioned earlier to you bill that I have a colleague that has joined us live today from Canada's is so glad that you're here. And they, they asked a live question so I'm going to read that out loud to you and and see how you might answer this for them. So the question is, why do you think some CEOs or executive directors resist graphic reports to their board, or disagree disagree on which numbers matter and might be right. Great question and greetings hello from hello from Canada. So, you know, I think you know in terms of resisting. I think, you know, maybe sometimes you know executive directors or CEOs, you know we say you know make the data accessible right but maybe sometimes the fear is well we don't want to make it to accessible right but. But I think it's, it's important you know it's it's important to have that to have that transparency so I certainly can understand you know maybe, maybe if they're maybe if there is bad news and executive director be like well we don't want to explicitly say it in a in a graph but, but I would you know I would counter that by saying I think if there's a story to be told, you know a graphic helps underscore that story and and repetition isn't always bad, you know sometimes it does take repetition. I had a situation, you know with this with with with one of my one of my own clients where, you know they were faced with with a cash flow, you know a cash flow crunch and it was one that we foresaw coming years ahead of time, and it took repeating it various ways in the financial statements in our written communications in our verbal conversations and then in our in our graphical communications as well for the board to finally realize oh yeah we need to take we need to take action we need to take action on this. Great, great question and I go back to you know the comment or question I said and you answered be ready for any graph any data visualization to get into the hands of others. And I'm curious so the last question for me, maybe I don't know I shouldn't promise that is, if a CEO executive director is resisting and showing that resistance bill. Do you have ways and how we might start to you know like teaspoon feed them some data visualization that isn't fearful and helps them to better find comfort and ease in receiving that that element. Absolutely so I think it all goes back I you know I mentioned earlier, you know we kind of you know we tell our staff our client staff this to kind of listen for those cues right you know what. What are the questions that your clients are having when when you're meeting with them and if, if you see a you know an executive director saying oh you know I really need to, you know get a better understanding of where we're spending our money on this program or on that program or how these expenses are trending. That's a question that that you know has the potential to be answered with a graphic so so so maybe when you sit down, you know maybe you don't put it in a report that's going to go to a board but maybe on one conversation with with the executive director CEO say hey I remember from our last conversation you were you were asking you about x, y or z and here's the explanation but also here's you know here's maybe a graphical way to look at the answer to that question as well. Great great answer I really appreciate appreciate that you know many of us use dashboards and that has data visualization baked into it. And so you know for me really spending a lot of my time and fundraising. I focus on this this data visualization because I want to see the charts and the pie graphs and I want to see that you know the line items changing there so I like that approach and hopefully our friend up north did to Well any other tips about making them less fearful because I I'm sure there's there's many more I love the you know the two door imagery that's that's powerful. Yeah, absolutely. No, I mean it's all really you know and I'll say it again but you know again it all I think comes back to just knowing knowing what the story is you want to tell an explicitly telling that story and and having the data support and your graphic support that story as well you know what's what's what's that key takeaway what's that headline what's that what's that interpretation. We always say you know tell the reader everything they need to know and nothing they don't right and and and and interpret you know interpret explicitly you just you just you just lay it out there and say you know this this hey reader this this is what you need to focus on. Yeah. Okay, I'm not done so so it so it finds out. How long does it take for your group to come up with some of these data visualization elements so if we said okay bill I'm all in and drinking the Kool-Aid we need to do more of this to in our organization. Obviously becoming a client with ypt is step one, but then like, how long does it take to create these graphs. Yeah, so it again there's there's no one size fits all approach but I will tell you, you know, we very often an associate one of our staff members will come to us and be like I think there's there's a story to be told here, and within, you know, maybe a consultation of of an hour or two and then some work on on our side to actually build the graph but within you know within you know a couple days there's there's usually something we can we can put in front of the client. Perfect, I love that so very much. You know these keys to making data less fearful is really what we need this image here right it really has this the analog over over a female and it looks for voting. I will say that does not look like they rolled out the welcome that. So thank you for all of this bill, you know, as we wrap up is there anything that your part time controller provides our viewers and listeners where we can find more more information and data for ourselves. Absolutely so so everything I was talking about today, you know the graphs that the charts how they look we actually have a ton of samples on on yptc's on yptc's page so if you go to yptc's main website. There's a link to our data visualization page right from our from our main page that will actually let you look at some you mentioned dashboards Jared we have some sample dashboards that folks can play around with and also what we call our static graphics showcase, which is dozens of examples of real life now of course they've they've all been scrubbed for the purposes of being on the internet but every one of those sample graphics that you see there were you know were originally created for for an actual client. So very helpful and I'm going to pull up your contact information for yptc, your part time controller their web address is yptc.com. And I got the permission before we went live that bill is very active on LinkedIn I know we're connected and I appreciate that. So go up on LinkedIn he shares some great information as well as his other data visualization group colleagues and the entire association with your part time controller. I learned so very much and really just have to say, thank you because I personally have and professionally grown through these high level conversations you know Jennifer Aliva joined us we've had Ellie we've had so many amazing amazing talented professionals from the organization across the nation so really grateful to have your your leadership in the sector. Thank you so much no we it's a pleasure for all of us every time we're on. Great, well thank you so very much pleased to check out your part time controller, been a phenomenal partner of the nonprofit show for Julia and myself. So thank you so very much to all of our presenting sponsors that allow us these conversations. Today was a popular one I can tell because we got questions we had a lot of live viewers we're probably going to, you know, blow up the streaming channels by way of watching the replay. So again I want to give a verbal shout out to all of our presenting sponsors that include blimmering American nonprofit Academy fundraising Academy with the National University, nonprofit nerd staffing boutique nonprofit thought center and our very own Bill Schwab here with your part time controller again thank you to you and all of your colleagues for not only, you know, providing this this information but providing your time because time is money and if anyone knows that it's certainly why PTC so thank you so much Bill for sharing all of this wonderful wisdom with us. My pleasure thanks for having me. Absolutely. And thanks to all of you that have joined us today either live or watching one of our recordings we're glad that you are here joining us. As we like to end each and every episode we end with this mantra, please stay well, so you can do well. Join us back here tomorrow.


So now we've heard from the academic perspective, but the academic turned policymaker and the topic of this session is very much turning what has been good and has been said and has been talked about and things and people know it's right, turning it into practice. So who better to talk about this than Thomas Vinnier who like myself is actually a Norwegian. He has a cottage up in Telemark, I understand, and this is where skiing was invented.


What is reality? Is reality something that happens outside of us and we're just observing? Or is it something that happens in our minds? Science shows that reality is actually what we perceive in our minds is not what's happening on the outside.  In this video, I'm going to share with you the science of reality and how to bend it. Before I applied these secrets in our life, my life was a wreck. I was sick, I had chronic illness, I was depressed and I was totally broke. Ever since applying these concepts, I was able to turn my life around and transform it completely. Now I'm very happy, I have multiple successful businesses and very healthy as well. What you're about to see is a lesson from one of my courses that's valuable at over $1,000 but I'm going to give it to you absolutely free. So pay very close attention because what you're about to learn is going to absolutely transform the way you see reality and give you the power to bend reality itself. That more is coming up. The science of reality and how to bend it is reality happening outside of your brain and then we're just observing what's happening outside of us or is reality actually constructed inside our mind as we perceive it happening? Which one is it? Who thinks it's happening outside? Raise your hand. Who thinks it's constructed inside our minds? Raise your hand. Okay, yes. So scientifically, actually reality is constructed inside of our minds when we perceive it. That means that if you can alter your perception then you can basically alter reality, doesn't it? In a sense. So is there such a thing as mind over matter? That's been a controversy for thousands of years, right? Can we use our minds to alter the way that matter operates or behaves in reality? Well, there's been a science experiment that's very interesting and it's proven that light waves like light particles actually behave differently whether as a particle or as a wave depending on whether there's an observer observing it, okay? And this science experiment suggests that our own consciousness, the consciousness that observing something happening actually can alter matter and reality itself, okay? This is very interesting. And the experiment is called the double slot experiment and you can you can research this on their own. There's lots of people that say oh that doesn't work but basically consensus is that we do not understand reality and we have yet you have yet to grasp what reality really is and basically you want to study it further. This gets really geeky but basically light is shot through two slots and then when nobody's watching then it creates a wave pattern so that proves that light is a wave but when somebody is watching or when they put a detector there they shoot it through the same slot and then the particles become a particle, become a dot on the screen. When the consciousness became part of the equation light reacted and changed its behavior. Light is how we perceive things so if we can change the way light works we change the perception, we change the reality. Does that make sense? So we have yet to understand the true nature of reality. Scientists haven't been able to figure out yet.  So did you know that your body your whole body emits something called bio photons and did you know that you can concentrate those bio photons in your index and middle fingers like this? So Qigong practitioners from China or from other other modalities as well like Reiki healers as well have a much higher bio-photon emissions than non-practitioners. So they've been doing studies on this. So this is a bio-photon emission camera. This is not heat, this is actually light particles that are emitting from a person's body and you can see that is focused a lot on the face. They've been able to figure out that the strongest emissions of bio photons is actually from your hands and especially the two fingers the four finger and the middle finger. Okay so here's a chart you can read this later so basically it's experiment that tested Qigong healers who had patients and after the Qigong healer did their thing on the patient the patients bio photons went up and then the Qigong healers bio photons went down so it's like the Qigong healer transmitted his energy to the patient and then the patient got more energy bio photons from the Qigong healer and then after a while the Qigong healer does some meditation and then the Qi comes back. So isn't that strange? So for thousands of years we thought that Qi is some woo woo stuff up there right? But now we have scientific equipment that can measure bio photons and show it interacting between Qigong healers and practitioners and patients. Alright so this mudra you see it in like a lot of martial arts especially sword martial arts and things like that. The fancy stuff you think is just stylistic but actually it is used to focus bio photon or Qi energy into your fingers. Now the cool thing is that not only Qigong practitioners can do it but everybody has this ability it's just something that you need to train. Would you like to know something else about you that most people don't know? Here it is the heart is more powerful than the brain. It's actually 100,000 times electrically stronger and 5,000 times magnetically stronger than your brain. So people think that what's the strongest organ they think it's a brain it's the smartest thing but it's not. Our thoughts and emotions affects the heart's magnetic field which energetically affects our environment whether or not we're conscious of it. So we have this field and it actually sends and receives information just like any field from a radio wave or from a cell phone wave it's the same thing. This field a lot around our heart actually sends and receives information and the people around us actually are affected by this field that we have. And did you know that our human heart has a magnetic field that can measure several feet from the body that's how big it is and negative emotions actually affect the field. Positive emotions do the opposite. So negative emotions make the field collapse positive emotions make the field expand. In the field of development the heart forms and it starts beating before the brain. You know that right when a when a baby is created in the womb the first thing that that beats is the heart it's not the brain. You're in fear when you're in doubt when you're in worry when you're panic is that a good time to make decisions? Obviously not. So you want to make decisions when you're opposite of that when you're relaxed when you're confident when you are clear that's when you want to make the decisions. Positive emotions create psychological benefits to your body so we know this from psychology we know this by biophysics right. If you're happy your body releases chemicals that makes it healthy that naturally heals itself it makes it strong. All right you can boost your immune system by focusing on positive emotions.  Isn't that amazing? Discovering things about our hearts and about our electromagnetic field about our brains that we've known right through like Qigong and through ancient texts for thousands of years they've been saying this but now we're using electrical scientific equipment to actually detect it and prove it scientifically. Hey I've got a lot more awesome content for you so make sure you click the videos here to watch the next videos that are very important for you to see. If you haven't subscribed to the channel click the subscribe link here and if you want to know what your Chi energy score is click the link in the description below to take the quiz.


The Internet of Medical Things, IOMT, is a rapidly growing technology that is being used to provide better healthcare services. It is vulnerable to cyberattacks due to its reliance on connected devices, leading to potential privacy and security issues for both healthcare centers and patients. To address these concerns, researchers have combined Blockchain, BC, technology with artificial intelligence, AI, but the costs associated with such systems are high and the security and privacy risks remain unresolved. This paper reviews existing research in the IOMT space and discusses how AI, BC, and cybersecurity can be integrated to create a secure and reliable system. It also highlights the strengths and limitations of each technology and suggests future directions for research. This article was offered by Amin Aya Hamid, Mohammad Maisin Abed, and Rashid Ahmed Nouri.


People who are preparing to do data collection and research often ask me what the difference is between a survey and an instrument. Actually, let's start with what is the same about them. Surveys are filled out about the respondent, meaning whoever is responding to the survey is filling it out for themselves. That's true for instruments as well. Surveys can measure facts as well as feelings or opinions and so can instruments. Opinions are seen as soft or latent constructs to measure, which are harder than facts. It's pretty easy to measure how many cars you own, but it's much harder to measure how you feel about your car. So, surveys and instruments both are filled out about the respondent and both measure soft constructs. The big difference is with scientific research about those soft constructs. Instruments have scientific research behind them, so you can be more confident you are actually measuring something when you are measuring a feeling. Want to know more about designing customer surveys? Take my free online course, Understanding Research Forms, Surveys, and Instruments. The link is in the description.


This video is part 3 of exponent properties. Alright, for these next two properties I want to look at a couple patterns. So 3 cubed is 27. And 3 squared is going to be 9. 3 to the first is going to be 3. And 3 to the 0. Now let's come back here and look and see if we can figure out what was happening. 27 to 9, what did we do? We divided by 3. 27 divided by 3 is 9. What did we do from 9 to 3? 9 divided by 3 is 3. So if I take my 3 and divide it by 3, I'm going to get what? 3 divided by 3 is 1. Alright, now if I divide by 3 again, I'm actually going to have 1 third. And if I divide by 3 again, I'm going to have 1 over 9. So when I look at this, I have 3 to the negative n. 3 to the negative 1 was 1 over 3 to the first. 3 to the negative 2, we could say that this is 1 over 3 squared. Again, this is 1 over 3 to the first. So if I have 3 to the negative n, it should be 1 over 3 to the n. So we had two properties going on here. The 0 property was in red here. 3 to the 0, anything to the 0 will be 1. No matter what the base, it's always equal to 1. I could have a big, great, big fraction with about 10 things in it, 0 is on the outside of the parentheses, it would be 1. Negative exponents, where there are purple problems here, and it says B, no matter what the base, to the negative n is going to be 1 over B to the positive n. So what did we really do? Well, my base was B and it became 1 over B. So let's take the reciprocal, and then once I took the reciprocal, I started out with a negative exponent, and now I have a positive exponent. So I have to change the sign on the exponent. And I can change it because I took that reciprocal. That took care of the negative for me. All right, let's do the negative exponents. What's the reciprocal of 7? 1 over 7. And change that from a negative 3 to a positive 3, and 7 to the negative 3 is the same thing as 1 over 7 to the positive 3. Here I have a negative number, so I want you to be careful. This is 1 over negative 2, it's the reciprocal, and since it's in parentheses like that, I'm going to put it in parentheses here, and my negative exponent becomes a positive exponent. So the negative exponent did not change the sign on my number. That's a common mistake, but it doesn't have anything to do with the negative of my number. The only thing that negative does is flip my base. All right, what's the reciprocal of 1 fourth? 4. I've taken the reciprocal, so now I want to make this a positive exponent. So it's 4 to the fourth, and I do happen in that 64. All right, now what? If I do it like we've been doing it, this would be 1 over a to the fifth positive 5, and then on the bottom we'd have 1 over a, and it would be to the positive 2. And that's kind of ugly looking. It really means divide. So I could come back and say 1 over a to the fifth divided by 1 over a squared. And remember when you divide fractions, you flip the second one. This is to the fifth. Time, you multiply and then flip the second fraction, so now it's going to be a squared over 1, and I'm left with a squared over a to the fifth. It's the same base, so I can use my properties. But what I want you to notice right here, a to the negative 2 was on the bottom, and it ended up on the top. And my a to the negative 5 is on the top, and it ended up in the bottom with the positive exponent. So there's a shortcut that says where if I have a fraction and I have negative exponents in it, I just have to move that factor to the other part of the fraction. It was in the bottom, so I moved it to the top. It was in the top, so I moved it to the bottom, and then give it a positive exponent. But let's finish this problem out to get the real final answer. Same base dividing, so we would have a to the 2 minus 5, which is a to the negative 3, and we never answer with negative exponents, so we're going to have to flip and take the reciprocal, so 1 over a to the positive 3 is my final answer. What happens here? The key thing to remember with these is order of operations, especially those first two. Those are the ones that really matter when we're talking about our exponent properties. So we have to do grouping symbols first, if we can simplify inside, we need to simplify inside, and then we have to take care of exponents on the outside. So I can't do anything in this parentheses, and I can't simplify in this parentheses, so I've got my g done, but I can now take my exponent and distribute it. So this particular parentheses, or factor here, becomes 3 squared, and h to the negative 2 being squared. So really, 3 squared is 9, and h to the negative 2 times 2 would be negative 4. That's this first parentheses simplified. I still have to multiply it by the 4h to the third. That didn't change. I just haven't done anything with it, and now remember you take your numbers times themselves, and you take your variables times themselves. So 9 times 4, and then I'm going to have h to the negative 4 and plus 3. Same base, we're going to add the exponents. So final answer. 9 times 4 is 36. Negative 4 plus 3 will be h to the negative 1, and we really don't have a final answer here because we have to answer in positive exponents. So 36 is really over 1. So 36 is in the numerator. This is over 1, so I take it to the denominator and give it a positive exponent. Let's do this next one. Inside the parentheses, grouping symbols. Can't simplify anything. I have 1 number, 1b, 1a, nothing to simplify. So I've got that one done. Now I'm ready to do the exponent. And remember everything gets done to that negative 2. And remember again that my negative number is not going to change sign just because I have a negative exponent. It may change sign because I have an even exponent, a to the 6 to the negative 2. Multiply our exponents here. Negative 8 to the negative 2. And also on the top we have b to the negative 2. And simplifying the bottom, a to the 6 raised to the negative 2 will be a to the negative 12. And this is where that rule about fractions and negative exponents really works. This a to the negative 12 to make it a positive 12 has to go to the top. And this negative 8 to the negative 2 can come down to the bottom to give it a positive 2 exponent. And the b to the negative 2 can come down to the bottom to give it a positive 2 exponent. So the a to the negative 12 now is on top. And it's a to the positive 12. And I have negative 8 but now the exponent is to the positive 2. And I have b and its exponent is positive 2. So we're almost done. We have a to the 12. Negative 8 squared would be positive 64. And b squared. And finally, look at that thing. Well remember grouping symbols come first. So I can work inside my grouping symbols because I've got numbers and I've got a's and I've got y's. So inside here, 18 divided by 6 is going to be 3. And then this is a to the negative 4 minus 2. Remember you subtract your exponents when you're dividing. And then y to the 3 minus a negative 1. Again subtracting my exponents. And eventually that's all going to be taken to the negative 4. But right now I want to simplify my subtractions. So 3 negative 4 minus 2 will be a to the negative 6. And y to the positive 3 minus a negative 1. Remember you can add the opposite. So it's going to be y to the 4. And then that's going to be raised to the negative 4 power. Now I've done everything I can do. I've got a number 1a factor with an exponent and 1y factor with an exponent. So I'm ready to do my e. I'm ready to do the outside exponent. So 3 to the negative 4 a to the negative 6 to the negative 4 and y to the positive 4 raised to the negative 4. I can multiply these two. So I'm going to carry along my 3 to the negative 4. I want to get down to simplify exponents before I start moving things. a to the negative 6 times negative 4 would be a positive 24 and y to the 4 times negative 4 would be to the negative 16. Now I'm ready to move. All of these are in a numerator. So if I think about it being a numerator then the 3 to the negative 4 has to go to the bottom and the y to the negative 16 has to go to the bottom. But I don't do anything with my a to the 24 because it's positive. So I keep it where it is. So a to the 24 is on top. I have 3 to the fourth and I have y to the positive 16. And I do know what 3 to the fourth is. So a to the 24 over 81 y to the 16.


I'm Salvatore Babona, and today's lecture is measuring the quality of the world's democracies. Headline figures suggest that there are around 100 democracies in the world, or about half the world's countries. But how good are they, the democracies and the figures? If the health of the world's best democracies is anything to go by, the health of the rest can't be very good. There are only two systematic sources for cross-national data on democracy, and neither of them is beyond reproach, just as perhaps no democracy is itself beyond reproach. An off-sighted figure is that there are just under 100 democracies in the world, though it's not clear exactly what this means. The number comes from the Center for Systemic Peace Policy for Research Project. This project produces graphs like the one you see here, charting the number of democracies from the year 1800 up to 2014. Democracies here are charted in blue. You can see that at the beginning there was only one democracy, and until the 1840s the polity project considered that there was only one real democracy in the world, the United States. And then many more democracies, first in Latin America, and then Europe and the rest of the world, joining the blue line here to bring us up to somewhere in the mid-90s is the number of democracies in the 2010s. But you'll see there are also two other lines in this graph, anocracies and autocracies. Autocracies are easy enough to understand. Those are countries where there's one person rule, dictatorships of one kind or another. But what are anocracies? It's an odd word. Etymologically it should mean no rule at all. The polity four project uses anocracy to mean something between a dictatorship and a democracy. In other words, those countries that are labeled with the black line in this graph have some aspects of democracy, but not all aspects of democracy. The line between some aspects of democracy and all aspects of democracy is very difficult to draw. As you can see, the biggest rise after the 1980s was not just in the number of democracies which rose dramatically, but also in the number of anocracies, countries that were difficult to determine whether or not they were truly democratic. The polity four project is sponsored by the Center for Systemic Peace, which is a non-government organization based in northern Virginia, of obscure provenance and funding. It was founded by the political scientist Ted Robert Gurr, and its current director is listed on its website. But there is virtually no information on the website or in its publications about the people involved, the funding it receives, and how it does the work it does. The polity four group is, to be fair, well respected within the political science community, but that doesn't mean that outside a narrow community of experts we should trust what it does. They do this characterization of democracies that shows pretty much the usual suspects. Full democracies are those of North America, Western Europe, with the curious exception of France, Japan, and Australia, New Zealand, and interestingly, Mongolia, which receives the top democracy rating of the policy four project for all of the last decade. Then there are a range of democracies that are not full democracies, most of Latin America, Southern Africa, and Eastern Europe, and South Asia. And then various levels of anocracy, closed anocracy, and autocracy. Those ratings that you see from a negative 10 to positive 10, one person rule to full democracy, are based on a score that is derived from expert ratings. The polity project rates both democracy and autocracy on two separate scales, 0 to 10. Democracy is considered positively, so 0 to 10 on the basis of having regular elections, constitutional restraints on power, and guarantees of civil liberty. Autocracy is rated 0 to 10 on the basis of how leaders are recruited, political participation in that process and constraints placed on leaders' authorities. The final polity score is simply the democracy score minus the autocracy score. So a country that has a rating of 0 for democracy, and a rating of 10 for autocracy, would get a total rating in the system of negative 10, full autocracy. On the other hand, a country that has a rating of 10 for democracy, perfect democracy, but 0 for autocracy, no aspects of autocracy, would get a rating of perfect positive 10, full democracy. On this scale, from negative 10 to positive 10, polity uses a cutoff of 5 points for democracy. Anything more than 5 points on the scale is a democracy. Anything less than 5 points is not. Curiously, all 5 of the Anglo-Saxon countries, and as well as the countries that are culturally closest to them, score a full positive 10 points. Most of us who live in the Anglo-Saxon countries can imagine at least some points on which our own democracies fall short of an ideal perfect 10. Nonetheless, the polity rating gives perfect 10s to all of these countries. Those coatings are based on at least 4 coders per country applying a standard code book. So the polity methodology documents do say how codes are assigned and the procedures that are used in resolving disputes between coders, but it doesn't give information on who the coders are. And we have to question how much expertise they really have. Many people may be experts on democracy in the United States or France, but how many people are experts on democracy in Mongolia or Cambodia or Paraguay? There are some 200 countries in the world to be ranked in every one of 215 years going back to the year 1800. That's a huge ratings problem, and it's hard to imagine that you could find four people who have expertise on levels of democracy in Paraguay in 1848, who have real expertise on that. Never mind, even if you could find them, the sheer number of people would have to be involved. Now, the polity project seems to use a core group of something like 20 or so people to rate it, to do its democracy ratings. The idea that they could collectively have sufficient expertise, that four people could give ratings on every country in the world is just fantastical. In fact, I would suggest that it's very likely that when the so-called experts have to judge a level of democracy in less well-covered countries, in the smaller, more less visited countries of the world, I suspect that they rely heavily on internet sources, and perhaps even on Wikipedia, simply turning to find out what's going on in the country from press reports, Wikipedia, and other online sources. Now, I have no direct evidence that they're in fact doing that. I simply look at my own expertise and the fact that I would have to go to press reports on the internet to find out what's going on in most countries, and I myself am an expert on the international data infrastructure. The simple fact is there is no depth of expertise available in Northern Virginia or available to the scholars in the networks of the people in Northern Virginia that could possibly result in valid democracy ratings for 200 countries. The second main source of data on democracy is the Freedom House Freedom in the World data set, which says there are 125 democracies. Freedom House is another NGO based in Northern Virginia. Freedom House does not have its origins in political science academia, like Politi 4 does. Freedom House has its origins in the United States think tank sector, and Freedom House is very closely connected to the United States government and US establishment NGOs. Freedom House gauges a number of electoral democracies using a simple rating, again derived from experts on its panel of experts, many of whom do not even have PhDs. Freedom House to its credit gives a full list of its experts on its website, and a quick glance shows you that most of its experts are junior analysts who are hired to work for a few years at Freedom House straight out of graduate school. The number of electoral democracies, however, is not primarily what Freedom House measures. Freedom House primarily measures the vaguer concept of freedom. It does not give a numerical score for democracy, electoral democracy is merely one of the ingredients that goes into its numerical freedom score. It characterizes the countries of the world as either free, partly free, or not free. And as you can see at a glance, most of the countries that are free are also the countries that are rated as democracies by the Politi 4 data set. As with Politi 4, expert coders are used to rate countries, though this time to rate countries on political rights and civil liberties rather than on democracy and authoritarianism. Political rights are scored from a low of 7 to a high of 1 based on multiple indicators. One is the best score, a perfect political rights. So liberties are also scored from a low of 7 to a high of 1 based on multiple indicators. The indicators are listed here on the slide. And the two scores are averaged. Countries are labeled free if the average score is between 1 and 2.5. So if a country scored a 1 for political rights and a 2 for civil liberties, that country would have a score of 1.5 and be considered free. Partly free from 3 to 5.0 and not free from 5.5 to 7. Obviously there's no real meaning to free versus partly free or partly free versus not free except in the sense that on the freedom house indices, you know, closer to 1 is certainly freer than 7. But exactly where the cutoff should be to call a country free is an arbitrary decision made by freedom house itself. By freedom house's reckoning, the world has been getting steadily less free over the last 10 years. Now, we might question exactly what that means and the robustness of freedom house's ratings. But whatever they're measuring, it is becoming less good over time. This chart from Freedom House's 2016 report shows the number of countries that have improving freedom scores versus the number of countries that have declining freedom scores in each particular year. Now obviously freedom scores bounce up and down quite a bit. But as you can see, since 2006, in every single year, there have been more countries that went down on the freedom index than went up. So 10 years of declining average freedom suggests a pretty bad situation. And that does confirm the results from Politi4, which also show declining quality of democracy over the last 10 years. All sources, both quantitative and qualitative and including anecdotal evidence, seem to agree that the quality of the world's democracy has been declining in the 21st century. But no one really knows how much or why. In some countries, like Russia, it's very clear that the quality of democracy has declined. This is a photo of the murder of Boris Nemtsov, the primary critic of Vladimir Putin's regime in Russia. Nemtsov was murdered last year in open air on the bridge that connects Red Square to the opposite side of the Moscow River. So this is one of the most secure areas of the entire country of Russia, just off to the side of Red Square, literally within sight of the Kremlin, the head of the Russian government administration on the top of the hill overlooking Red Square. Yet this murder has gone unsolved and the perpetrators have apparently gotten away scot-free. It seems impossible that a major political figure could be murdered on the edges of Red Square without the crime being observed or solved. The fact that in Russia, political critics are routinely murdered suggests that the quality of Russia's democracy is declining. But it's not just Russia, it's the quality of democracy in other former Soviet republics like Belarus and Ukraine. It's the quality of democracy in Western countries where political debate is no longer as robust as it used to be and governments are no longer responsive as they were. And it's a decline of democracy in very poor countries in places like Africa and Southeast Asia where leaders increasingly cling to power and refuse to accept regular rotation in office. Key takeaways. There are only two systematic cross-national rating systems for the quality of democracy, the polity for dataset and the freedom in the world dataset. Both produce estimates for unrealistically large numbers of countries and time points, calling their reliability and even their validity into question. Finally, the simple truth is that no one really knows how many democracies there are in the world nor how good they are. Yet we can form an impressionistic judgment that roughly half the world's countries seem to be democracies of some kind or other and the quality of those democracies seems to be declining in recent years. Thank you for watching. You can find more about me at my website salvaturbabonus.com where you can also sign up for my monthly newsletter.