All right, we are live at Reclaim Today and I am joined today, not only by Jim Groom, but also by Andy Rush, at University of North Florida. What is that? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, man. Good morning everybody. As for the friendly new media guy. The man makes an entrance, you can't argue with that for sure. That's awesome, how are you doing, Andy? I expect no less. I'm good, I'm good. I expect no less of myself when I'm in your presence, so. And this is just like old times, getting together with the DTLT crew. That's right, that's awesome. So like, I mean, Tim and I have some very selfish reasons for having you on our show today. But I also just wanted to, in addition to looking at Tim, I wanted to actually ask you, like, is this a new day for the new media guy or gal on campus? In COVID, my personal experience has been going back not only to the radio, but Tim and I have been experimenting a lot with TV, live broadcasting, all sorts of video stuff that brings us back to the kit and all the stuff we do at DTLT. So what has your experience been being a new media specialist we didn't even introduce you at the University of Northern Florida? What's it like? So I'm, my official title is course media developer, but essentially what that means in the COVID area is everything going online, especially video and audio, podcasting, it's all coming kind of to a head because everybody needs to put media online quickly. So I have been deployed in such a way that has been kind of a madhouse. And then in addition to that, kind of describing what I'm doing, describing what I do, telling people how to optimize things with microphones and cameras and lighting. And so I come to you in my studio because of COVID because it's completely changed the game in terms of what we have to do and what we've been tasked to do. This was a studio that's been in existence really since, or some form since I've been here, which actually coming up September 14th will be five years that I've been at UNF, which is mind blowing in itself. Yeah it is, it's totally crazy. And did you play a role in building that studio? Or was that already there when you got there? When I first came here there was, we have two buildings that cert, the Center for Instruction Research Technology here at the University of North Florida. So there was East and cert West. I was over in cert West and we had a studio with a green painted wall and some nice cameras and some lights. And we were set up there to do some basic green screen stuff if people wanted to incorporate that into their media. So that was one of my charges. We were starting, I was bringing some of the domain of one's own stuff and we certainly can talk about, reclaim and domain of one's own and where that fits in. And that becomes a part when it comes to media and presenting media. But so we had a studio in the other building and my office was right across from the studio. It was just in the hallway, right across the hallway. And so I'm part of the cert creative team, but the rest of the cert creative team was over in the East building or cert East. And so I eventually moved from there over to here. And then I was going back and forth between the studio and we said, let's bring the studio into the cert East building. And so that's the space that I'm in right now. And so we've just, I've tweaked it all along. We purchased some camera equipment to kind of upgrade and go to 4K, which I don't think will ever really come anytime soon. But we are now in this space. And then when the COVID hit, you know, back in March, it was like, okay, now what do we do? I don't think I'll get any business. You know, nobody's going to want to come to the studio. And then we thought, well, we could make the studio safe. And that's kind of what we're doing here now is a combination of things. So, and then it's it, we're also going to kind of incorporate the one button studio idea that Penn State started back in 2012, I think it was, where you come in and you hit a button. That's what I was going to ask was like, are you thinking of any self-service type options like that in addition to, I guess you could do it safely with somebody doing the production side, which would do one thing, but then could you do self-service stuff too? Yeah, so I'm really having a tough time with the one button kind of idea. I mean, there's one button that you hit to record. And that was kind of the model that we had in the online learning lab, which is another space over on the west side. And you would come in with your flash drive, you would get your cameras set up, and then you would hit the record button. You'd have a lapel mic to wear and you'd make your recording. And you could write on a touch board kind of screen and you could incorporate some different things, but the quality wasn't great. And it was a very complicated system that reminded me of every classroom kiosk that is over-engineered. And so we decided to kind of bring some of that stuff and make it more simple. So I imagine it starts to get a little bit factory-wise. Like, I mean, the videos that you produce out of something like that are, by their very nature, I imagine, going to be sort of cookie cutter, right? I mean, there's only so much you can do in that sort of frame to make it automated, right? Right, and even the videos that we did over here in the studio with the green screen and the professional cameras, they were kind of, it's like, well, you have to shoot in front of the green wall. And here's your selection of backgrounds and here's some lower thirds that we can put up. And I think they function very well. We have a lot of faculty members who go through an online training course through our instructional designers. And then they come to me to do like their course introduction video, which will get placed in their Canvas course. In sub cases, they might put it on a website, but generally it's, you know, Canvas is the delivery mechanism for a lot of what we do. When I first got here, we went through the transition of going from Blackboard to Canvas. So I keep reliving Groundhog Day over and over again as my next job, I'm sure I'll go to a school that's still using Blackboard and then we'll transition to something more reasonable. But yeah, that's kind of been the evolution of me being here at UNF.  And, you know, in some cases amaze people with what you can do. And that's the whole purpose of this new studio. So, you know, whether we wanna call it the multi-button studio or the multi-function studio or just the studio, I think it's gonna be a lot of fun and I've got some things to show you. So, you know, we can get to that after you pummel me with more questions or, you know, get this stuff out of the way. I do, I have one question for you, Andy. Yeah. One of the things I was, you know, this is new for us is one of the things we've been playing with just last week and we're using right now is this thing StreamYard. Have you explored like any online, somewhat in the middle production, kind of like whether it's with Zoom, whether with a tool like this where you do deal with some faculty and help them produce something, but not in the studio online or is that just too difficult given they have to have the green screen, the camera and everything else? Yeah, so as much as I've worked hard on getting the perfect key for my green screen, you know, you quickly realize how limiting it can still be. You can only do so much with backgrounds. You have to work hard to get it to look decent. And then when it comes down to it, yeah, nobody at home has green screens. There's the, you know, there's the portable ones that you can roll up and put behind you, but no, I don't want faculty to even worry about keying. I want them to worry about good lighting, you know? I want them to think then about their audio and those two things are the most important. You know, don't worry about your camera. Don't worry about too much else, but lighting and audio are the most important things because you need to be heard and you know, if you have no light, it looks terrible. So, you know, a webcam can work. So, yeah. I was just gonna say, I think it's interesting too because the virus is really like, there's a real supply and demand issue right now. So, sometimes even just getting the hardware for somebody at their house is not that easy. I can't go out and buy a webcam right now or if I do, it's gonna be like really bottom of the barrel. Everything is sold out. And then you can sometimes get a microphone and it'll say like, okay, shipping in five to six weeks. And you're like, I need it now for my class. So, there's a real supply issue where I think there's also a demand. Yes, people are trying to do a lot from their house, but then I think your idea of like somebody be able to safely go in somewhere, produce something and then walk away with that artifact is really important. Yeah, I mean, there's so much that I've been thinking about with how this has changed.  So, you know, I think that stuff starts to get ridiculous really quickly and you meet people where they are, you know, if all they have, you know, the other thing is they forget that they have a cell phone in their pocket that has a camera in it that can do a good job with at least making the recordings. Maybe not as easy to get online with that stuff, but you know, it's a start and then you can build from there. And then I think faculty then realize, hey, you know what, even in normal times, if we ever get back to normal, I can incorporate this for quick videos that I need to push off to my students to say, here's a change in the syllabus or here's something that I want you to think about or here's a current events topic that, you know, we can discuss and then faculty and students can go from there with the various platforms. So yeah, we deal with Zoom. We have a site, a campus site license. So it has kind of all the bells and whistles in terms of cloud recording and transcripts and that sort of thing. So that's really nice, especially in the days of where accessibility is being emphasized as well. So we wanna make sure that we have a transcript to go along with the video that we do. And then we have a transcription service for any videos that we produce in the studio or elsewhere. So yeah, the Zoom technologies, you know, look, they've all the got their issues and privacy and all that kind of stuff rears its ugly head, but Zoom just, they won because they made things easy and because they had decent quality. They weren't necessarily the best, but they certainly worked better than Skype. And it was easy to use and people could pick it up fairly quickly in terms of how to use it. And then virtual backgrounds, like, yay, ugly, terrible, you know, I kid about it because I look at them and I go, you know, I cringe, but everybody loves them because they can put themselves into this world where they wanna be, you know, a lot of people are putting themselves on the beach or in the woods. So I'm enjoying that. You know, for me, a good bookshelf with some pictures in the background works very well.  So, and also as far as StreamYard is concerned, you know, all these programs are kind of taking off again. You know, back in the day it was Wirecast and I think Wirecast is good, but it's also not worth, it's not $500 worth good when you can do something like StreamYard, you know, monthly fee to get the features in StreamYard. But, you know, then you have things like OBS and then there's the OBS forks from there that do the different capabilities and putting themes and then it gets into streaming and video games, you know, recording, you know, all that stuff that COVID has really focused on. And, you know, we've got faculty that are doing a lot of different stuff with this technology. And one in particular that I'll talk about that's using Twitch, so. Well, it's funny you mentioned that because I was gonna talk about video games because I actually like, one of my theories is that up until the virus, and now the virus plays a role in it too, but I think video games and Twitch have really been pushing the entire industry of online broadcasting forward in amazing ways. I mean, you're seeing lots of new hardware coming out that we could talk about all of this various software. A lot of it's being driven by people who've monetized on it for their streaming and a lot of that's come from Twitch and video game streams and things of that nature.  And there was enough out there, but it was expensive. It was really geared towards like enterprise level. And now they're trying to bring the pricing down because they know they want people doing it from their living rooms. And the virus now, I think, has only pushed that forward even more so, you know, because now it's sort of like, okay, now everybody's a Twitch streamer in some sense, right? You know, in that regard, we're all at our houses and we're all having to get online on meetings and things like that. So what does that look like? I think it's really interesting to see how that industry has pushed forward. And I love it because I have an interest in it as you all do, but I think it's really interesting. Well, it's been great to think about the stuff that we were doing in DuPont Hall at the University of Mary Washington. And then, you know, moving into a bigger, more capable building and thinking it would be Nirvana and then all the issues that we dealt with from there, ones that almost killed me. And probably in some ways kind of pushed me, you know, to do something different and, you know, do it again in a different way and in a way that I could kind of control. And that's where I am five years later. And like you say, Tim, the YouTube streaming and the Twitch streaming has just, you know, YouTube has been on the scene for so long, but because of COVID, it has just burst into, you know, domination and YouTube as a platform for education in terms of just learning things about the streaming technology. There's so many people that I have begun to follow that I wasn't even on, you know, they weren't on my radar at all. And now there's all these people that I follow on, you know, like and subscribe on YouTube. And I'm able to, you know, smash that like button. Yeah, ring that bell. No, and once you're getting it, I think too is the progression of how people consume media too, right? Like, I mean, that march of progress was already going on.  And it's like, well, I don't watch- The marble rallies. Yeah, I don't, yeah. Fall Guys or Minecraft or whatever the case may be. It's sort of like, oh yeah, I don't watch as much cable TV anymore. Oh yeah, we can't go to the movies because of the way things are right now. So the way we even consume media is driving everything forward towards this and just a huge way. It's almost like the nasty moment for big media, right? I've been a big fan of like these small, video artist TV stations that are popping up. There's one called EXP-TV that is just mind-blowingly awesome. And they have like a schedule. They have crazy like, it's almost like the YOLO, the Russian YOLO, all right, whatever that do.  And that's all it is. They find these crazy international and national and whatever video clips and they put them together and they have like music videos and it's just an experimental like MTV. Yeah. It is amazing. It's like a thousand public access television in the way of COVID, right?  It's like that stuff was revolutionary back in the 80s. And now it's not revolutionary anymore, but the average Joe or Jane can start their own YouTube channel and be very successful with a minimal equipment investment. And then as they get more popular and they get more money, they reinvested in more equipment and so on. So it's been fascinating to watch, you know, the decade that has existed between March and today that it feels like the amount of stuff that has changed and the way my thinking even has changed with the technology that's become available. The progression of stuff that's come along has been amazing to watch.  And it's, you know, it's goofy, it's campy, but it's also entertaining. And also there's a lot of great information that these people are able to put out there. So yeah. Well, it's also interesting because you said this idea of going back to normal. And I don't think we are. And I think that's like what we thought of as normal, you know, pre COVID and what we'll think of as normal, at least in our field, is not going to be. I don't think there will ever be. And I think this is here and what we do with it and how we imagine it is important. So we thought of you immediately, which is why you're on. And then we also did, we're thinking, I mean, to give you an insight into, you know, part of what we're thinking about turning the room Tim is in right now into somewhat of a studio. And we know you have extensive experience both at UMW and now at UNF. And so we wanted to get a sense of what, what's in your studio. Basically pre-consulting.  What was the names of all of those things?  So if I don't get the level that I need, I'm just, you're going to see color bars and that's it. So and there should be NDAs. I don't, I don't know that we would want to actually be broadcasting this because then you can't resell that to other folks. Yeah, exactly. That's right. I don't have a tone to go along with the bars yet. So, yeah, exactly. I actually, I have a picture here of the studio. I'm sorry to give you any flashbacks here. Yeah, yeah. Here come the color bars. He's out. He's out cold. Can I do that? No. Can I do that? No. Can we do this? No. Yeah, this is my $100,000 studio. Stay out. So this was the, for us, the IT Convergence Center, I guess now it's called the Hurley Convergence Center. But essentially, this was the production studio and this was sort of a first crack coming from DuPont, where we were sort of duct taping solutions together, just grabbing random equipment on the fly. This was the first opportunity to say, like, let's actually design a studio. And you played a massive role, I think, in that. I'm curious to know a little bit about what this looked like and what you took from this in terms of ideas and methods and what you're doing now at UNF. Yeah, so go ahead and leave this picture up for a second because there's a lot of stuff going on in that space. And a lot of what happened in that studio informed where I am right now because, so the thing that you see in the very foreground is a huge, like a 32-channel audio mixer, which I'm sure nobody ever got past four in terms of needing audio for that space, maybe eight. But it was really nice in terms of its integration. And so a lot of this equipment I specced and Blackmagic Design is the company that is still in existence and they do a lot of, I'm gonna shift over a little bit here, so. I can make it bigger over there, yeah. No, this is a good shot right here. And so the middle console there where the keyboard and the mouse is, that's the ATEM switcher. So Blackmagic Design makes these switchers called ATEMs. And I don't even know where they get ATEM from. At one time I knew kind of the etymology of where that came from, but essentially it's their line of video switchers. And that particular one allowed, I think, eight different video inputs. So we had three, two or three studio cameras and you can see a boom microphone in the green screen area. It was pretty tight in there. And one of the things that we quickly realized is we ordered lenses that were way off, they were lenses that would work in a studio that was 20 by 20 or 30 by 30 or something like that. And we were in 10 by 10 I think in terms of the working space. And then there was really no audio treatment so the room really had this hollow sound to it. And we thought about audio blankets and other treatments, but we've got a green screen cyclorama in that space that you really kind of want to immerse yourself. And then there's the racks of equipment that are on the far left hand side there in the back with monitors. And a lot of that stuff I could get working. The whole idea was that you had the camera and an operator being able to talk back to the studio back and forth to get ready camera one, okay, switch camera, all that kind of stuff. And I don't think we ever had the people or the time to do a full on production like that. It was so new and we had to bang on the equipment just to get it working in a certain way. And I think we got there, but I think also at that point things were going on at Mary Washington and I was so exhausted from the mental hoops that I had to go through to do some of this stuff that I needed to break. I'm in Florida. Well, and I think to your point, it's sort of difficult trying to design a studio to think about what's possible, what we may want to do in the future. And then you find out, well, we're not actually doing that. So you always call it all a waste, but at the time, like I think that the goals were noble anyway, right? It's sort of like, oh, we could do all of this stuff. We'll need this equipment to be able to do it. And then you find out, well, there's no real traction in doing those kind of things. Well, and what I found is, there's just an equipment budget. There's no people budget. There's just an equipment budget. Exactly. Exactly. And I'm happy to be the people and the equipment, the person that the equipment goes to, and I get to play with the toys. But yeah, that's been the issue. And unfortunately it took something like, not that they wouldn't invest in this going forward, it just would have been slower. With the crisis that we've had, it's accelerated it. And it's overwhelmed my thinking because I'm just, I'm going to sleep and dreaming about cameras and how they integrate and how, what if I can't switch to one or the other? All that kind of stuff. But when you think about it, you've got this space, you don't really need that big an environment to do something high quality. You need good audio, you need good lighting, you need a decent camera. And then the other thing that people need are a way to get all that stuff onto the web to stream it. And so a little $300 box that I have down to my left, your right is all you need to kind of switch multiple cameras and send it into something like StreamYard or send it over Zoom or over Skype or pick your streaming platform or communication platform that you desire. So. So I want to know about that box, but I just want to have one last question before we leave off of UMW's work there. I mean, would you want a room like that at this moment? Like if you could, would you say, yes, give me that room at UNF? Obviously with the modifications, but is that designated space? I would imagine UMW is pretty lucky right now to have it. Whether they get someone to run it or whether they have people to run it, you would imagine that's kind of like some forethought on the part of you and the people who designed the room to have those designated studios like that. Yeah, so like all instructional technologists, I think you're tasked with so many different things. So it would need to be a space that was designed in such a way that one person could handle it and that one person was dedicated to that space. And I can't speak to where Mary Washington is right now, but I have a feeling just in higher education that whatever person is there is managing multiple spaces and not just one space. So that gets really difficult. If I were to do it, I would say just that, I wanna have a large enough space where I can have a room that I can slice up if I need to, like I can go into a corner and do this or I can go into the green screen space and do that. Or we open everything up, we pull the curtains back and it's a complete 360 degree cyclorama, green screen kind of thing. So I think what you need to do is build a space that's flexible and then you have a space that someone can learn, but also the equipment that you use, you have to be able to translate that down to some extent to people who will be using it. You've gotta have other people maybe on your team that don't know as much about video, but need to know the basics so that they can help people out if you're not there, because things quickly fall apart if you're the only one with the keys to the studio. So you wanna make sure that you use equipment that is good quality, but also is accessible down the line to people who have a chance of learning how to use it. You mentioned Blackmagic, I'm not using any of that for this, but I did pick up one of the A10 Minis last December to start playing around with that. And I think that's a perfect example of a lot of power, but simplifying things, right? Like it's four cameras, which is probably more than enough for most studios unless they're doing major productions. It's HDMI inputs on the back, there's buttons to press and you switch between them and then it goes out and into any device and it becomes a webcam.  And now I've gotta convert those back to HDMI to get to the camera and how the hell do I do that? And every step of the way is a $300 adapter and you suddenly realize this is more than I can handle. So I love that more devices are coming out that are kind of meant for the consumer, the prosumer, I don't know what you would call that level of user, but much more simplified but still really powerful, I think, for people who wanna do this kind of stuff. Yeah, I mean, so the HM mini is a revolution and well, all right, let's not go too far. It's an evolution because obviously there were the HM studios that were in existence. And just like you said, there were- This recording brought to you by Blackmagic, for all of your- This is not a sponsored video, by the way. No, and they were already working on the HM mini before COVID really hit, obviously. I mean, I couldn't have brought this product out that quickly, but it has changed the way people have brought their YouTube channels to the general public in terms of the capabilities. So that studio that we had at Mary Washington, there were eight inputs, but you could only use six because the two in the middle were crossovers. So it was for SDI and for HDMI. And so the two in the middle, you could either choose HDMI or SDI. So it was like you could only have six total, which was fine. I mean, we still didn't need that in the studio that we had. Now it's all HDMI and the huge difference. And no one would even think about this and writing this down as part of the specs of the ATEM mini. But the huge difference with the ATEM was it simply used those HDMI inputs and it made them kind of all seeing HDMI because with the old ATEMs, you had to have a specific frame rate and resolution. They had to match, you had to pick one. And so you'd plug in one camera from a device and then you'd plug in like a computer and it wouldn't match and you'd have to troubleshoot or get it into the right resolution. The greatest thing about the ATEM mini that no one would ever talk about or think about is that it just scales the video on its own. So you plug whatever in and it does its thing and boom, you've got 1080p 30 frames per second. So that in and of itself is great. But also another brilliant thing that they built into the ATEM mini was a webcam out.  So those four cameras now or up to four cameras that you have all of a sudden become part of your production studio that runs into your laptop or whatever you've got to connect to the internet and you've got a broadcast studio that you're sending out over Zoom or over StreamYard, whatever, we've talked about all the different ones. And I believe the newer ones, the ATEM mini pro actually streams directly from the device. Is that right? Exactly, yeah. So there's actually three ATEM minis now. There's the ATEM mini, the basic one, which is 300 bucks. There's the ATEM mini pro, which is 600 bucks. I think it's 295 and 595 for the prices. But so the ATEM mini pro has the USB kind of does double duty. So you can send webcam out of the USB-C but you can also record to an like an SSD or a flash drive directly out of it, which is nice. But it also has an encoder built in. So you can send that stream simultaneously to YouTube or Facebook or, and in some cases, if it's not supported, you kind of need to get into the back end stuff and set up the RTMP stream, all that kind of stuff. Like DS-1 or 6TV? Yeah, exactly. You're saying that the ATEM pro even acts as a streamer? Yes. Wow. So it doesn't even need to go directly into your computer. Like the streamer is there apart from any connection you have to a computer.  There was one that we used, I think briefly at Mary Washington called the VidiU. And it was basically a box that you connected the Ethernet to and then you would say, where do you wanna stream to? And I think the choices at the time were YouTube and I can't remember, maybe JustinTV, I don't know. You streamed maybe or something like that. Yeah, you streamed, probably you streamed, that makes sense. And that was HDMI in on one side and Ethernet on the other, I think, if I recall correctly, it was just an embedded mic. And I think there was a pass-through. So you could send an HDMI and then it would pass throughout to a monitor and then it would have an Ethernet jack in it that you could send to and you set up the IPs and all that kind of stuff to go onto your network and you would stream out from there. Now that's built into a ATEM or an ATEM mini pro. And it's, again, it makes sense. You know, it's kind of brilliant and it's simplicity. There is also the ATEM mini pro ISO, which allows you to record each of the inputs from the cameras because what you're doing is you're bringing in the inputs, the four inputs and you're going out to either streaming or you're going out to like an HDMI recorder. And when you record that live, you're recording your switches.  And then what you do is you actually take that whole switching edit decision list, if you will and you import it into there, into Blackmagic's editing program called DaVinci Resolve, you export that edit decision list and then you can go in and you can kind of, you know slightly adjust the, when you switched from one input to another.  And it does, and it records all of those various switches before. So it's just- You should have to re-edit the entire thing all over again. Exactly, it's basically, you know, it's a text file that remembers all the things that happened at a given time and then you go in and you essentially edit that in DaVinci Resolve. And then you can also export it out to Final Cut which is what I use. So that's the idea of where we're going. So right now I have the ATEM Mini but we're gonna have an ATEM Mini Pro ISO in the studio. The other thing that you can do is once you've got one or the other, so we would have the ATEM Mini Pro ISO as our main kind of switcher but then you take the ATEM Mini that we already have and you could run more cameras into that. So you could have essentially cameras going into that and then the ISO has other inputs like computers or iPads or whatever. And so you've got that many more cameras added to your system. So there's a lot of people out there who are demonstrating. Here's the ATEM Mini Pro ISO and here's the ATEM Mini and it runs in and you've got like seven inputs that you can use at a given instance. So can I ask, Annie, this is awesome by the way and can I ask, was the device you were gonna show us the device that Tim showed us? Yeah, yeah, it's ATEM Mini. You too. And I think way back in whenever it was that it was introduced, I think the people who got really excited about this ATEM Mini Pro. Tim, I know you tweeted about it. Who else? I'm trying to think now. Probably Martin, obviously I think has talked a little bit about it. Yes, that was it, yeah, Martin. Yeah, so it's like, hey, look what Blackmagic just released. And I immediately started salivating because I just started thinking of the possibilities of what you could do with this. And then for it to be like- It is different though with like between that side of things and all of the USB devices. And because it's like I've got a USB camera, a USB microphone, none of that works with the ATEM. So like, so that's where it's kind of like, okay, all of that gets thrown out and instead you're using a really nice camera with an HDMI output. You're using microphones that have eighth inch jacks or converted to eighth inch as opposed to anything USB for audio, did any of that change or is that still the case? Yeah, so that's an interesting point. And I think there were so many problems with USB cameras to try to do a multi-production kind of, have a multi-production environment because there's inevitably delays and latency that you have to deal with. And so the basic, and then audio, trying to incorporate the audio and working with delays there. So it was never a good solution that had any kind of legs forward. And I've cursed HDMI in the past just because of cables and cable lengths and that kind of thing. But now that you can take HDMI and convert it to USB in different ways. So the basic way, and Tim, you probably heard of something like this device, but it's called the cam link. And it's a basic way to take a really good camera with HDMI and convert it into a webcam. So, and it could be the cheap Canon Vixia for 200 bucks. It's got an HDMI output and you run it into the cam link into the HDMI port and then it's USB on the other end that you plug into your computer and you've got a webcam out of your camcorder. And then what you can do with that camera is you can change the exposure and change some of the parameters to kind of give you a better input device. And there's certainly something to be said for, a Logitech C920 or a good webcam that can output and it's just there and you use it. The built-in cameras and the Apple computers are just now changing to 1080p, which is amazing to me. I think the brand new iMac is now a 1080p webcam built into it. It's like, why has this taken so long? But anyway, so it's just a matter of, if you wanna do the production and not be tearing your hair out, you kind of need to do HDMI, but it's not to say that you can't do it and there's probably companies that are working on even those lower end versions to use multi webcam inputs. So it's a fascinating space. And I think my thing will be translating it to faculty and to students. I mostly work with faculty, but we have students working on projects with faculty. So we've gotta convert the ideas of how to do a production with in many cases, you know, low end equipment or equipment that needs a little push to get it to do what you need it to do. So the basic camera that I have that I use is a Panasonic GH5, it's a Lumix GH5. On the top of it, it has a little hot shoe audio mixer and that's where I'm getting my audio from. And so then in the switcher, I just keep that audio as the constant audio source. So I don't have to worry about switching audio or worrying about other audio cables, but I'll wanna get this space into a place where we can do podcast recordings and then we'll have multiple microphones and we'll be able to do the video version of the podcast and that kind of thing. So yeah, that's where it gets complicated. Well, and you talked about how, you know in a lot of cases, it's great if you have a really nice camera but you can get away with a decent enough camera if you're lighting an audio or good. And so I think that's probably a good segue into talking about what does that look like for people? Like, I mean, am I buying, you know, cam lights? I mean, what am I hanging up here? Is it like one of those ring devices that looks like I'm like tweezing my eyebrows here or something or, you know, what does it look like for someone to have good audio and lighting as a part of it? So are you ready for the big tour? Yeah, I'd love the tour. I'm taking vigorous notes and I'm, you know I'm keeping track of all of these brand names because I'm hoping they're going to sponsor us after the fact. Absolutely. Yeah, when black magic starts sending you devices I expect to get half of what you get. So to stream. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, get busy with the fizzy. So what I'm going to do and before I get to the studio itself, I will say, you know, in terms of what you need, I think there's a constant evolution because what's changed is really reducing it down to the small eight by eight space of a spare bedroom that a faculty member is using at home. So you don't want big huge light boxes necessarily in that space. You want something that's a little bit more manageable. You want something with a dimmer control or whatever on it but you really are looking for a simplified version of a full-on studio. Again, I preach this, I say this over and over again, you know, lighting and audio are the things that you concentrate on and people will always say, well, what about the camera? It's like, you can get by with a lot of different types of cameras. And, you know, the GH5 with a lens is like a $2,000 camera but you can get by with something much less expensive and still have very good quality. So you don't have to spend that much. It has some features that we use but whatever. So having said that, I will start to give you the tour and if I'm going too crazy or going off on tangents, you know, bring me back down to earth but I'll kind of show you what's going on with the setup that I have here. So this is my basic green screen shot. The camera without the green screen looks like this. So this is me in the studio and it's just trained on myself. Right here, I've got my laptop. I'm looking at you guys in StreamYard. Right above that, I've got another monitor. It's actually an Atomos Ninja V recorder. So it's got the output from the HDMI from the switch are going into that and I could be recording this. I'm not at the moment but it records to a solid state drive. And so that's the kind of the prototype for the recordings that we wanna do. And then that comes out and it goes into another box. One that you guys kind of put me onto was the Hopog, the PVR rocket. It's that one red button that the faculty member can hit to record to their flash drive. So that's kind of the end. We're using it at the remains conference, yeah. Exactly, exactly. That's the end point for the faculty member where they can leave with their MP4 file that they may wanna trim the beginning and ending off but they've got something where they're leaving the studio with that. And then from the Hopog, it just goes to another monitor that is another pass through that I can see is just a bigger monitor, a bigger version of everything. So camera one, camera two is this background that I have on the computer and I'll turn the key off. Camera three is an iPad. And so this is just another input that a faculty member could use. And so they can click on it and they can write with their Apple pencil. And they can get rid of all that stuff and then they can switch to their next slide. So we can incorporate an iPad into the picture. And then I've just got my GoPro that is going to show you all the stuff in the space. What I'm switching with, so there's the buttons on the ATEM. And so I'll show you, I'll show you, here's the ATEM mini, right. And the difference between the ATEM mini and the Pro and the ISO is there's more buttons over on this side here that allow you to stream and record and control what the output is out of the output device. So this is again, the basic version. But what I'm actually controlling things with is what's called the Stream Deck. And so if I hit- From Elgato, right? From Elgato, exactly. Yeah, so, and this is using a piece of software on the Mac called Companion. And so what Companion does is it gives the instructions to switch the ATEM mini. So this is just going USB into the computer and then that's talking with the ATEM mini to do the switching. So what I can do, let me see, I'm gonna switch to... Which it's pretty incredible. I just wanna say because like, from the previous shots that you had, it looked like as if you were in like a really fancy studio and someone might be handling all the switching for you. And it's just a handful of fairly small devices that you're just able to manage right there pretty much at a desktop, right? Right, TV is fake, Tim. You have to realize this, the stuff that we do. They know attention to the man behind the curtain. Yeah, exactly. So I've got isolated in my picture-in-picture the cam link so I can show you the button. So it's just, I'm on camera one right now. Here's the computer input. Here's the iPad and then this is just a double up of the GoPro input. And right now there's the hop hog and I can hit my button and start recording. Then I've got a media input and a media background. And I can also do what's called, and I meant to do this in the beginning.  So that is awesome. Let's take this off, hang on one second. And this is the other thing that I haven't set up yet are macros for the ATEM. So the other thing that companion can do is you can record all of the button presses in the software control for the ATEM. So I'm doing some of my switching from the software on the Mac itself. You're not seeing that screen, you're just seeing this UNF background, but I'll show you that stuff in a second.  So you can go in and make the changes in the switcher and then that's a button that will exist in companion for you to play back at a later time. I didn't get a chance to set those things up but anyway, that's kind of where that is. So let's take our downstream key off. So let's back up and we'll go to the webcam and we'll take my key off here. So let me just give you a little backup. So I've got an umbrella soft light on the right and the left hand side. You know, here's the stream deck and my iPad, here's the, I can zoom in and zoom out due to a little hyper effect here. But that's the StreamYard stream. This is the Ninja V recorder and in the back it's got an SSD on it that you record to and then the GH5 is in the back. Okay, and then I'll turn towards the green screen. I've got kind of wall washers on the green screen itself. We still have the network jacks and the electrical outlets that we need to paint green. I just strategically sit in front of them so that you don't see them. And then up in the ceiling, we've got wall washers coming from the ceiling. So they're just basic, you know, maybe 150 bucks a piece for the lights that are there and then trying to get as even a green screen as we can. And so that's- You're not even using a curtain. You just painted the walls and then you're trying to light it in a way to get rid of as much of any seams as you can. Exactly, because we found with the fabric and that kind of thing or even the paper if you can get it, there's, you know, you got to get your steam cleaner out or your steamer to get the wrinkles out. And then you just, you're dealing with so many kind of, you know, shadows because of the folds in the green screen. We just decided to use this, the chroma key paint from B&H photo or whatever. So, and we've got it kind of going along the wall but we've never really used that other wall. We just, we've only done this straight on shot so far but we're hoping to do maybe eventually the floor will be incorporated in the green screen stuff. So that's the kind of studio. And if you want me to stop and answer a question about something specific, I'll show you one other piece of equipment that I'll use. Well, actually a couple more. So back in here, there's just a basic ethernet switch that's here that allows me to control the switcher through the camera or through the computer, through the Mac. So I've got it going into ethernet and you just specify the IP address of the ATEM and you're able to communicate back and forth. So when I press buttons up on the switcher, I can switch from the iPad or the computer or back to the camera. I can do that in software on the Mac as well. And that's where you can do much more fancy stuff. And then there's this other thing called the decimator which I will demonstrate next, okay? So are you guys ready? I love the name. Absolutely. So I'm gonna switch just back to the camera. And I'm gonna undo one little thing here. Let's just make sure I'm undoing the right thing. And while you're doing that, Andy, what microphone are you using just out of curiosity? All right, I'm sorry, I was gonna show you that too. It's just a, it's a Sennheiser MKE600. It's a boom mic. I will... So it's overhead. Yeah, it's literally right here. Yeah. And I can get back when I get the GoPro back on. But what I wanna do is I wanna switch to input four and I'll take off my key, okay? And I'll be right back. Please stand by. Please stand by. Can you see me? We can. So now all this stuff is backwards, I assume. It is. And you may or may not be able to read what I wrote. We can. Red rum, red rum, red rum! Yeah, exactly. So what I need to do and I'm gonna switch, I'm gonna switch back to a mirror display for my computer. And what I'm gonna bring up next is the decimator software. So if you see this little box right here, it may be pretty small on the screen, but it says horizontal flip enable. So I call this the $300 checkbox because the decimator costs $300, but what it does is it allows me to flip that image. Yeah. Okay. So if I go back, you'll be able to see me right way around. And is that, that's a glass whiteboard or something? Yeah. It's what's called a lightboard. A lightboard, okay. So we just have another camera that's trained on this and there's actually an LED light all around it. So that's what kind of illuminates me. We may have other lights on the side, but then you're just able to write on it and do equations and it looks like I'm able to write backwards. And it's just a simple switch that allows you to see what's going on and we'd be able to record this live for a faculty member. And then we could even bring in overlays from the switcher and that kind of thing. That's pretty cool. You probably can't even hear me talking barely, can you? No, it was clear. You can hear it? Okay, good. And I saw someone, a professor that was linked out, I think by Clint Naland or someone about a woman at USC who had been experimenting with OBS in doing some of that lightboard stuff, which I thought was really cool. So that's super cool to see you doing that. Yeah, I've been amazed when they first, let me bring my key back up. When people first started talking about the lightboard and incorporating it and spending the money on it, I wasn't very excited. And that's how the technology is sometimes. You think about it and you think, well, what would I ever use that for? Would our faculty take to that? I've gotten more interest in the lightboard probably than other stuff in the studio. And then in some cases that's personally disappointing, but it's exciting for faculty. To be excited about making stuff and doing stuff in a space. So... Well, and I imagine that it really depends on what they're teaching, right? For a math professor, it's probably crucial that they're able to actually write out those equations and things versus someone teaching art. Yeah, probably not. They're probably more excited about being able to pull up images on an iPad and do things like that and switch back and forth and that kind of thing. So I think a lot of it depends on the discipline. Yeah, it's the kind of thing, I'm gonna bring back my UNF logo here. The big thing about this era that we're in is the connection part gets lost. You aren't able to see people face to face. And I don't know if, I assume you've experienced this and I know faculty and students have also experienced it. Is Zoom room exhaustion? Like when you're done with the Zoom conference, it's exhausting. And one of the reasons that it's exhausting is that we're not face to face and we're not able to look at each other. And even the audio is not clear. There's breakup in the audio or there's times when you don't quite hear somebody the first time and you have to ask them again or is your, my mic is muted. You might wanna turn your mic on, all that kind of stuff that goes on during the Zoom meetings. Or people are looking at their camera, they're not looking at you and vice versa. So there's never that connection. I mean, I'm even in that situation right now where I'm not always looking into the barrel of the lens and that makes a difference. I noticed that. So that eye contact is really important. And so one of the things that I'm also gonna be incorporating of all technologies that I don't necessarily use a whole lot and I don't necessarily encourage it a lot is a teleprompter. Yeah, yeah. You know, a teleprompter to read your script is what faculty just say, well, I've got a script, you can just put it on a teleprompter and I'll read that. And I'll say, well, you need to practice that kind of stuff. But aside from that functionality of a teleprompter, what a teleprompter also can do is it can take the output of a video feed. And you can put it, instead of the text that you would read on a teleprompter, you can be having the video feed up at the same level of the lens. And so you're literally looking at the person on the other end of the Zoom call, you're looking into the lens at the same time. So all we need to do is just kind of, and what I'll use is an iPad that will now take the output from the Mac and it will put it there. And there's a program out there that will actually has what's called teleprompter mode so that you can take your Zoom call and you can switch it right way around so that you can see them and everything is facing the right direction. And then you're just looking at your camera lens, but you're actually seeing the person that you're talking to and you've got eye contact. Is that like the Enterocam that Aril Morris would use? Exactly, that's exactly. I mean, it's the Enterocam is much more sophisticated and there's mirrors and lights and stuff that's internal to that. That's much more complex, but yeah, it's essentially the same thing. If you can get a video camera trained on somebody straight on, they now- That's smart. The people on the other end won't be able to see you the way that you see them. So I'd be looking at somebody Zoom feed, I'd be seeing them and I'd be looking straight into the camera. They'd have to have the same setup on the other end in order for them to see me the same way. Yeah, I found myself doing that a lot here in the office where if I've got a TV, I'll typically put the webcam on a boom stand so that I can put the webcam right in front of the TV as opposed to above or below it just so that it covers a little bit of the actual what you're seeing, but not enough to where it makes a huge difference, but then being able to look directly at the Zoom call or wherever we're at and be able to look and you're looking in the camera but seeing the people as well. And I do think it does make a big difference. It's almost subconscious, but it makes a difference, right? It does. Exactly. Yeah, so the Mac does sidecar, which allows you to send a screen to the iPad or an iOS device essentially. Then there's a piece of software called Duet and I found a program online, like one of these little Mac programs that allow you to do these strange functionalities in your computer that would horizontally flip it with software, but it gets a little bit wonky. But now I think there's a program called Luna something. If you know Adam Lizagor, he just did a video on it. He's the guy that sells anything and everything online, kind of these two web 2.0 kind of companies. But it's added this teleprompter mode so that you can switch your iPad or your iOS device as something that gives you that looking. So my view here is the monitor. So when I'm looking straight here at my monitor of who's on camera, my camera is just a little bit up and that's the lens is there. So it's close, but it's not perfect. And it just gives you this look of like you're looking down at your notes or you're looking down at your computer. So even if you were just looking at yourself, I think there's a lot of value in that. You're monitoring what you're recording. If a faculty member is recording themselves doing things, they wanna know that, if you still wanna keep looking at the camera, but no, okay, I actually did switch to my notes properly. And they're seeing what they're supposed to be seeing without having to look away or suddenly look down and go, oh, I forgot to hit the button to switch it. So it allows that real time monitor to, yeah. I like that. I like that. What is it, Corsair? Is that the people who make Elgato? I like that switcher that you have right there that's connected to the stream deck. Yeah. It's the stream deck, yeah. Yeah, that's like, let me switch. Let me switch cameras. If I'm right, the stream deck is connected not only to your computer, well, is connected to your computer which then is connected to the ATEM Pro or the ATEM regular, which is where you can have all those inputs plugged in. Cameras, are the mics going into the ATEM Pro too? So the microphone and here I can show you the microphone now. It's just, this is just the boom arm with the Sennheiser microphone. Got it. And it's just, it's right above my head. Let's make sure I've got my chair oriented here. So the stream deck, let me take my key off here. The stream deck just goes USB into the computer and it's running the software that's controlling it is called companion. So if you just do a search for companion, it's a piece of software that gives you, and I'm gonna hide these other ones for right now. And you can tell the buttons to do anything, right? Like I think you could press a button and play an audio file or whatever the case may be. It's just a grid of things. Yeah, so normally the stream deck software that goes and controls, like you can start programs, you can play sounds, you can build macros and that kind of thing to do things on your computer. What the companion software is, which is separate from the Elgato stream deck software and they can't run simultaneously or they get confused. So what companion is, you literally configure the buttons to match what's on the stream deck. So everything that you see here is the way that it looks on the stream deck. So this is, that's companion on the stream deck and this is the interface. And then you can go and you can configure all these there's even presets. So if you go into the ATEM presets that are there, you can come in, you can bring any of these onto your companion and build your studio essentially or your switcher in terms of giving it extra capabilities. So it's pretty, I mean, the innovation that has happened in that space is pretty incredible. There's another piece of software that I've been made aware of called H2R Graphics and that's another thing. So the ATEM switcher crowd, there's a couple of guys. There's one guy named Aaron Parecki who is, who does these live streams using the software and he just basically holds question and answer sessions for an hour or so about how to do things in the ATEM world, in the switcher world. And so one of them is, and then there's another guy named John Barker who has a YouTube channel called Here to Record. And he built this. And Aaron is actually a huge guy in the indie web community as well. He does OAuth stuff, right? I was thinking that, yeah. We met him when we were at MIT. Yeah, so he's, in his spare time, he has a studio kind of show that he shows off cameras and switchers and all the different ways that he kind of incorporates graphics and things into his stream. And Aaron, or I'm sorry, John Barker here to record built this software that allows you to do like lower thirds that will go over. And you've got to do a little bit of setup to switch what your input is. So I won't make this work right at the moment, but you can do things like lower thirds, tickers, timers, that kind of thing within the switcher environment. So there are just, there's so many people that are kind of innovating in that space that it's just, it's a cornucopia of stuff that's available to kind of do in the do-it-yourself studio world. It's just, it's really kind of amazing. So that's kind of the demo of the studio and that's where my head space is right now. And if you have more questions, I'm happy to answer them as long as you've got them. I know I don't- Like I said, I think it's really cool to see that you're doing that, not with some like huge fancy production studio.  And it looks really nice. And I think that's really inspiring, you know, for me as well as I think for anybody else that would be watching this to know, okay, like, you know, it's clearly not something that most people would do in their living room, but at the same time, if people are thinking about like, what's the next step? Especially if you're in the ed tech scene and you're thinking, man, it'd be really great for us to have something a little bit nicer here in the office. We've got a spare room or something like that. What can we do and get away with? I think you're right. I think the hardware and just the costs overall have dropped and things have become a lot more user friendly in that regard, in terms of compatibility, things playing well together, in terms of just access to stuff. The players like Blackmagic has already been around. Elgato has been around for a while now, but doing a lot more in the way of capturing and providing those devices like the Stream Deck and stuff. I think it's all super cool stuff. And I appreciate you jumping on a call with us this morning to talk about it, it's really cool. Yeah, it's been great. I mean, so where we go from here, I've got more equipment on order. And what I showed you is, for some people, they would look at it and it's just kind of a jumbled mess of wires and boxes and things that do stuff that they can't begin to fathom how it's all working together. So the idea for the next step is just to kind of, for lack of a better word, industrialize it, streamline it so that we've got a rack of equipment that faculty can ignore, but they know it's doing something, but the mess of wires and cables are out of the way. And so we'll have a phase two of this studio that will have some of the basic capabilities, but it'll have like the rack-monable SSD recorders from Blackmagic. It'll have a Blackmagic camera that actually will have, and will be able to communicate with the ATEM switcher to do things like zoom and focus, and also have like a tally light so that you know that that camera is on. So simple additions like that with some a little bit more expensive equipment will give the studio an ease of use that will be much more at the forefront. Right now, I wouldn't say it's very easy to use. I can probably teach my colleagues how to use it in terms of the team that I work on, but faculty, that would be a tough sell. But then we can kind of see where we go from there, but the idea is that from here, I can make little videos that show people how to make a mini studio. So one of my future videos will be, okay, you've got two of the little, the two of the Canon canporters and a switcher and a microphone, wireless microphone, how do you put that into a space that a department or a school can use at the university? Here's how you use it. Here's what you need to consider. Don't forget your lighting. Use this good microphone, that kind of thing. So it's, I'm always kind of thinking about, you know, what can you do with this and how do you make it accessible? So. Andy, one question for you. Yep. With the phase one studio you have set up right now, if you exclude the cost of the iMac, if you exclude the cost of the iPad and some of the hardware that let's just assume someone has, what would be the cost for the phase one with like a $2,000 camera, like you said, the GH5 or whatever, what would be the cost like lights, switchers, all that stuff, roughly. It doesn't have to be exact, it's just an estimate. So I will just think off the top of my head of the things that you would need. So I, so what, you need a good set of lights and you need a good microphone. Again, emphasizing the two things that I always start with. I would recommend something like a Rode Wireless Go, which sells for about $200. And that's a wireless microphone that you can clip on the camera and plug in. And then you wear it as a lapel. And then there's also a wired microphone that you can attach to the module, the transceiver module that goes to the camera. So that's 200 bucks, plus the Lavalier is another 80 bucks. So for about, for less than $300, that's your microphone.  So a light on the left and the right and you can get these. So Elgato makes a set called the Key Light, but they're on the expensive side. So you can kind of get a knockoff of the Elgato Key Light for about 80 bucks a piece. So 160 for lights. You don't have to have a stream deck. It's something that I use that gives you that extra capability, but the stream deck is about $130, I think. And the Hop-Hog recorder is around that same price point, maybe a little bit less. And then the Blackmagic design, the ATEM Mini, the basic version is $300. So somebody do the quick math for me and total that all up. That's basically what you need. And then, so you mentioned a camera. I've got the GH5, I would say that's a higher end camera, the Blackmagic camera that we're gonna be getting is about the same price point, around the $1300 price point without any lenses. And you generally want some good lenses. So you can actually buy a baby brother to the GH5, which is the Panasonic G7. And just the body for that is about 500 bucks. So you can get a, and that's with a kit lens. So like a 14 to 45 lens, which you double those focal lengths and that's the focal lengths that you're working with. So it's like a 28 to 80 lens. I'm sorry? I was gonna say, are those lenses particular to the camera that you buy? It's not like you can take a Canon lens and put it on a Panasonic camera, whatever the case may be, or are they interchangeable?  So micro four thirds is the format of the lens or the style of the camera and the mount. So the lenses that would work on the GH5 would also work on the G7 and also any other micro four thirds camera that has interchangeable lenses. The Canon mounts are different. So Canon lenses need to be Canon mounts. Nikon lenses need to be Nikon mounts. And that's, you know, it's funny. It used to be Canon and Nikon were the cameras for digital photography. And then as they move forward into video, Nikon kept up for a while, but they're kind of off in the distance and Canon is the real innovator right now. But I like the Panasonic cameras because of a lot of different little issues that just make it easier to work with. For instance, it's got a basic standard size HDMI output instead of the mini or the micro. So that's one of the reasons that I use that. And then obviously with the black magic integration, that's something that does a whole lot of different things and you can actually record internally to that to like an SSD, lots of the capability. So it's really kind of, here's your basic setup. Here's your intermediate setup. Here's your advanced setup. And so there's the different price points. So probably a thousand bucks gets you a studio. Again, not including the Mac or the computer that you're using to do the interfacing with. But yeah, it's pretty amazing what is out there and there's gonna continually be innovations. And I'm sure eventually black magic will update their current line of rack-mountable ATEM switchers to have all those capabilities that people are looking for like the webcam out and some of the capabilities the recorders built in and the encoders built into them. So it's a golden time to be doing what I'm doing. And then if I could pick two things in higher education to be concentrating on over the last 10 years, it would be web development and video production. And I get to do both of those here at UNF. And so the web development stuff is the platform where you put the media. So I just, I'm in a world of wonder here at UNF. Well, that's super. It's always warming to see you, Andy, but to see you thriving like this. And actually, your day comes when it is awesome and you have so much knowledge in this space. So I thank you for like spending it, but we'll be calling you again and bringing you on for another reclaim today as we build ours. And the idea of a $1,000 price point is amazing. It's amazing if you're building a studio as an ad tech group or in your house, if you can afford it, like that's a number that's not the $100,000, the $50,000, the $20,000 we were used to. It's really encouraging. So thanks for that.  And now you've got it a third of the cost as your starting point to do a switcher in a studio. So yeah, it's a great time. And I hope to have a dueling studio set up with you guys and see who can do it better and have that competition because that always what was the thing that drove us to be better. I'm only half kidding, it really is the kind of idea of, hey, did you see this? And then sharing that with your colleagues directly, doing it even in this environment with the three up boxes, sharing what our knowledge is and where we're going forward with it and maybe eventually the sponsorships will come. The entire cam thing is brilliant. That's sad I'm taking that one. We don't need a dedicated T1 line to simulcast between the two studios or anything. We've got the internet, so. Funny that you mentioned that. There is another device from ATEM called the, I'm blanking on it. It's a box that allows you to communicate over ethernet to like another building or through the internet to another remote location. So that stuff is coming at a low price point too. Yeah, yeah, bandwidth is always important. Well, Andy, anytime you get your channel up, I think you've definitely got two subscribers in me and Jim. Smash that like button. We will for sure. Absolutely. Thank you so much for coming on this morning. We really appreciate it. And I know this is great seeing you both going back scribbling notes down and taking, taking note of everything, but I love it all. Thank you. Thanks. Absolutely. So glad and look forward to the future one. Awesome. Thanks. Take it easy. See you. Bye.


winning profitable dropshipping products. For example, let's kick it off straight away with products number one, which is a golfing product. I love featuring golfing products on the channel because I play golf, I love golf myself. And it is also a very untapped market on Facebook. There is not many people selling golfing products on Facebook, meaning the CPMs are cheap. So some background information on this product is by a company called Ask Echo Golf. This particular post has been going since March 15th of 2023. So what's that two or three months before I show you the actual product itself, I want to show you why I feature these products and how I know that they're profitable for these companies. So first of all, we have the engagements. We can see 6,000 engagements, 1,000 comments and 600 shares. So people don't tend to run ads obviously for that long unless they're seeing a return on it. So there's kind of signal number one. And then signal number two is in the comments section. So when you're doing your product research, if you want to pick a product that you know for sure has the potential to work for you, then this is what you're looking for in the comments section. So what we're trying to look for here is basically people who have said that they've bought this product and they're happy with it. There's no good selling 100,000 units or something if the 99,000 people are going to send them back. So we want to make sure that people are buying it. And also importantly, people are happy with it. So we'll start off with the most relevant comments, ignore the time stamps on these of five weeks, five weeks, seven weeks. I will show you the newest comments in a second so you can see that all of these products are still current active and working right now. So Mark here from five weeks ago said I just got my new bag, made the changeover from old bag, can't wait to try it on the core. So there's somebody who has bought this product. Alan, I got one and I love mine used on a push cart. There's another person who's bought this product. Martin says great bag. Jason says great bag. Gregory says I love mine. Another person that's got this product. David, love mine. Another person that has this product. Will here says can't wait on mine, been two weeks waiting for my order. So there's somebody who's bought this product, maybe they have their supply issues. Sevan, Simon comes Friday and can't wait to try out another person who's bought this product. Bruce, guess what? Mine showed up today, very nice bag, stands very tall. Nevertheless, it will work. Another person has bought this product. Brett, I just received mine. Another person who's just bought this product. And then Steve Cap. So this is an interesting point. You can buy these on Amazon. So I think it's a legit company. This is something that I've been talking about inside my inner circle with a lot of people. The biggest hurdle you have to overcome as somebody who's marketing on Facebook is people seeing you as legitimate. So by putting yourself on other platforms is a great way to do that because if you are your very own website, there's no credibility really there anymore. Whereas if you're selling on these platforms like Amazon, like eBay, where they already carry that reputation and credibility, it's a great way to show you our legitimate business. So that being said, we can see people buying this product. We can see it's been running for a few months now. What is the product? So basically it's a golf bag if you haven't guessed already. There's a couple of unique features about this though. So number one is the dividers at the top when it gets around to showing them if it hasn't already. Here we go. So typically golf bags do not have these club by club dividers, meaning your clubs kind of clatter around and scratch each other. So there's kind of like one USP about this bag. Something which they don't actually show in the video, which I definitely would if I was them is they show it on the website. So if we actually jump onto the website and the thing I was going to show you is this here.  What I really like about the branding of this product as well is they're not going after the professional golfer. Professional golfers are brand snobby. They want a tight list bag or they want a Callaway bag or they want a ping back.  They're not trying to become professional golfers. They probably like to have a few drinks on the way around and that is their target market, which I think is bang on with the way that they sell this product. Let's go back up to the top then. We can see it's not a cheap product. $200 is a decent price for a golf bag to be fair, especially one of this size and this level of material. In fact, $200 is a very good price for this product. Just goes to show how much money the big name brands must be making on their bags because they'll be manufacturing a significantly a lot more than these guys. As we move down, they do a really good job. So they have, as you can see, like a grade out background and then they use these white boxes to separate up the different kind of spotlights of the different functions and features of the bag. It's all original content.  It's making things functionable for people, ultimately making the game more enjoyable for them as well. So we can see they've private labeled this product. They've got some nice product imagery as well. Definitely this one, which points out the different dividers and different dimensions of the bag, which is important for people who are potentially tight on space in their car. So they're selling the product for $200. If we jump on to Alibaba because they're most likely sourcing this in a bulk quantity, they're not drop shipping it if they've got the logo on the bag. And let's take a look then at the sort of level of profit margins that these guys are probably making. So $200 is the retail price. I found a product, which is very, very similar. Ignore the colors because there's it comes in the black, white, white and purple and a black and white here. These are purely just the example ones. We can see it's got the exact same dividers on the top. It's got the exact same kind of carry bag there. Whether this is a cool bag, not I haven't checked that or not, but for all intensive purposes, don't need to watch that. For all intensive purposes is basically the same bag. And if you're ordering 500 of these things, you're looking at $70 per piece, plus you're shipping on top of that, you're probably looking in and around sort of $100 delivered to wherever you're sending it. They obviously won't be sending it direct to their customers. So they're probably looking at about $100 delivered to their 3PL, who then has to pay to pick back and dispatch it on to their customer. So we've seen the product they're selling. We're seeing the creative they're using. We're seeing their Shopify store set up. What can we actually learn from these guys? Number one is this position themselves as the original seller as an expert in this product. They're not just a pop-up dropship in store, which makes them a lot easier to trust for people. We can see that based on the comments in their Facebook ads. So if you're watching this video and you're thinking, well, what can I do? What can I take from this? Then number one, try and pick a niche which you have a passion in, something or an interest in and you know something about because then it becomes a lot easier when it comes to product development because you know the pain points of the people in that niche. You know the sorts of things they look for in a product in that niche. It also makes running the business in general a lot more enjoyable. But most importantly, when it comes to the actual product itself, try and get to this point as quickly as possible, putting your logo on the product, putting your products on other platforms so that when people do a bit of research and they want to try and find out whether you're legitimate or not, if you keep coming up on all these different platforms and your logos are everywhere and you come across as a proper outfit, you're going to become a lot more trustable and therefore you're going to capture a lot more customers. Well, that's been something guys. That was product number one. Before we move on, just very quickly, 10 to 20 seconds of your time, I want to make you aware of a free training that I've just finished up recording. It's called how to build and launch your very own business and start making sales in less than 21 days. It will show you literally every step you need to take step by step from day dot to getting your first customers in 21 days. It is 100% free, won't cost you a single penny. All I ask for is your email address and that is so I can send you this. This is my personal hand picked selection of 194 profitable product ideas for 2023. So if any of that sounds good to you, once you've finished watching this video, make sure you check out that top link in the video description below. Thanks. Moving on to product number two, then we have a product from a company called Jackie's. I've actually featured Jackie's before on my channel. They do a really good job and seem to keep replicating this success with multiple different products. So this particular one has been live since March 1st of 2023. In that time, they've chundered up. That's not the right word. Is it? They've gathered, they've achieved, they've acquired 4.3 thousand reactions, 2.1 thousand comments and 800 shares. Before we jump into the comments, actually that does just remind me I didn't check the newest comments on this one. So we'll change this from most relevant to newest and somebody actually posted 10 hours ago. Mine came in today. So 10 hours, 11 hours, 13 hours, 13 hours, 14, 19 hours, 20 hours, 20 hours. So as we can see a significant amount of comments all from the last 24 hours and even better, some people actually posting pictures of the bag once it's arrived. So I think it's pretty safe to say this product is working very well for these guys. Back to Jackie's then. So we've seen their engagements. Let's take a look at the comments. This is brilliant. Our four-year-old son would learn and difficulties loves it. I love it. Bought it for my granddaughter. Fabulous toy. Thank you. Ordered arrived. I had a schedule. Fantastic. So interesting grandson loves it. So there's kind of like a theme here. So bought one for my grandchildren for my year-old granddaughter bought one for my daughter. So there's kind of like a theme here, my granddaughter. There's lots and lots of people who have bought this product for their granddaughter. Let's check out the newest then before we forget to do that again. Just check it is still working today. So 15 hours, 19 hours. So putting these up 21 hours, one day, six days. That's got replies so three days. So two days, five days, six days, one week. One week, one week, one week. 14 weeks. Ignore that. That's because it has a reply from one week ago. And one week, one week, one week. As we can see, lots and lots of comments, lots and lots of people have bought it. So what is this product? As you can see, it's kind of like a sensory book. It opens up and it has lots of different pieces of fabric, lots of different textures, lots of different kind of like stringy toy bits, pouches, clips, buckles, all that sort of thing to help your children as it says they develop fine motor skills. One of the reasons why these guys are so successful is because they are targeting the most prominent buyers on Facebook, which is grandparents. It is hands down the best audience on Facebook, in my opinion, there are so many grandparent related products that do so well on Facebook. Let's jump on to their Shopify store then. So we can see they're actually selling these products. They're very, very cheap products which shows how high they must be converting on this for £14.95. That is indeed great bridge pounds as well. What I'm going to check is actually, is what they're charging for shipping. If I can get that far, in fact, let's click on shipping and see what it says. So £2.95. So they're selling it for basically £18. Let's take a look at their quick look at their product page, actually, before we go any further. So you can see the sort of thing they're doing.  Looks, reviews, and then the product description itself is heading, paragraph, image, heading, paragraph, gif, heading, paragraph, image. The most textbook product description layout on Shopify you will find anywhere. Let's jump on to Aliexpress. We've got a couple of examples here. This is a slightly different one that has more pages in it. So I wanted to show you this should you want to sell a similar product. That you know the idea is tried, tested and validated. However, in my opinion, this is a more superior product. If you wanted to sell the exact same product, here it is for £4.54. They're selling theirs for £18 including delivery. So only leaves like £13 of room in there. So it just goes to show how successful this Facebook ad must be performing. And with that being said, that brings Facebook Ads Friday to a wrap for this week. If you're still watching, thank you very much. I really do appreciate the support on the channel. Don't forget to hit that like button if you enjoyed the video. If you're going to try any of these products out, if there's anything I can do to help you get started, whilst we don't get many comments on the video, so make sure you make the most of it. Because I do read every single one, so I will answer it and I will get back to you. Thanks for watching guys. Have an awesome, awesome weekend and I'll see you in the next video on Monday.


And we're going to go ahead and get started with the next set of presentations. As was mentioned earlier, my name is Gordon Danes. I am the curator of research and instruction services at Brigham Young University. And I have had the privilege of working with the project teams working on the question, how do the library's special collections specifically support and promote teaching, learning, and research. These teams have worked very collaboratively and there's a lot of overlap in the things that they've discovered about the effectiveness of using primary sources in teaching. And I'm excited to see the two presentations that we'll be having this afternoon. But I also wanted to point out that the University of California, Irvine and the University of Pittsburgh have both made their posters and some presentations about those posters available on the special collections question page of the Research Library Impact Framework website. And I would encourage you to go take a look at those posters and listen to their presentations. And we'll have an opportunity to have questions for all of the project teams after we conclude with the two presentations that we have here today. First, we're going to have the opportunity to hear from the project team from Johns Hopkins University, and I will go ahead and turn the time over to them. Thank you, Gordon. I'm going to share my screen. I have a short PowerPoint. I also want to acknowledge that Heidi Hare and Josh Everett are on the Zoom with me. So they'll be able to answer some questions when we get into that into that portion. So OK, so I'm hoping that you all can see my my slideshow. So I'm Margaret Burry and I'm the assistant director for academic liaison and special collections at the Johns Hopkins University. And I'm very delighted to be here today to talk to you about our practice brief for our Freshman Fellows program. So a little bit of background. Our Freshman Fellows program started in 2016 and it was the brainchild of Heidi Hare, who is our amazing, amazing outreach librarian for special collections. She noticed that our upper level students were really enjoying the work that they were doing as our Dean's undergraduate research fellows and thought, wouldn't it be so cool to give this as an opportunity to incoming freshmen? So she designed a program in conjunction with three of her other colleagues in special collections, where we precurated a set of materials. We reached out to freshmen really almost as soon as they were accepted, pointed them in the direction of the materials, gave them background on the program, which included a thousand dollars stipend at the end. So I will say one of our findings is money. Money is always a good motivator. And they had to apply. So they basically had to write an essay and say why they wanted to be a freshman fellow. So we ended up with this incredible first class that was involved in a variety of projects. Keana explored dress reform and first wave feminism. Lucy Massey looked at translating texts in Latin at the George Peabody Library, and that actually trans that translation experience has carried through all of our freshman fellows. Faith Terry worked with our university archivist and looking at the history of student housing at Hopkins and Caroline West explored our amazing collection of Shakespeare first folios. So as you can see, it's a really wide range of research topics that the students engaged in. And we realized as 2020 approach that, oh, my gosh, our first set of cohort would be graduating. So wouldn't it be a wonderful idea to figure out what kind of impact did it have? We were having a hard time figuring out how to structure it. And then, lo and behold, fortunately for us, ARL announces the Research Library Impact Framework in 2019. So we put together a proposal that allowed us to not only assess the program, but also develop a brief that would allow other people to implement this should they want to do it. So as I said, our team consisted of Heidi Hare, Jessica Keys, our user experience analyst, who put together the semi-structured interviews and conducted them with both the mentors and the students, two of our liaison librarians, Steph Gamble and Josh Everett, who both had expertise in the application of rubrics to student work. And I was the nominal head, but honestly, I think all I did was was pretty much make sure they didn't have too many obstacles in place as we moved through this process. So our approach was a series of semi-structured interviews. And our report is on the website, so you can see the interview questions there. We conducted them both in person and via Zoom. And the second portion was to develop the rubric to assess the students' work. So what did we find out? Well, this quote was one that appears in our report, and it really, really struck me as the best way of summarizing what happened when someone becomes a freshman fellow. And it's that they really do build, they have an opportunity to build confidence in themselves and in their abilities to be on campus. And this quote is even more compelling when you read in our report that the student who said this was actually waitlisted. And she said it wasn't until she got the freshman fellowship that she felt, I really deserve to be here on campus. So that was, I think, an amazing testament to the quality of the program. Additional findings beyond the sense of confidence was building a sense of community. The four students really did bond as a cohort, and they came together in an amazing experience where they got to show their research to the public during an annual festival in Baltimore that's called Flower Mart, which takes place for those of you who know Baltimore, right around the Washington Monument in downtown Baltimore and right near the Washington Monument is our amazing George Peabody Library. So this is a photograph of Caroline who worked on the Shakespeare first folios sharing some of her research with the general public. And what the students said was, you know, it was great to talk to their cohort. It was great to talk to their mentors, but to actually be able to work with to talk to the public about what they had learned and try to interpret that and share that in that type of a setting was so meaningful for them. They were also very comfortable applying for other grant opportunities. All of them went on and got other grants. And for those who were majors, had majors that really didn't deal too much more with primary sources beyond freshman year, when they were looking for electives, they actually went out and looked for courses that allowed them to engage with textual analysis and primary sources. And Hopkins, as you may or may not know, has no core curriculum. So there is actually a lot of flexibility when students are going outside their major. So we were very pleased to hear that they took that opportunity to continue to engage with courses that worked with special collections materials. And then for those students that were humanities or social science majors, they found that when they encountered primary sources again, as they moved through their academic studies, they felt they had so much more fluency and comfort with them than their peers did in their classes. And they felt that made a great impact on the work that they did as students. So the mentors, mentors were drawn from the special collection staff, and they really looked at it as an opportunity to help get students outside of their comfort zone and try to do something different. I would also say as someone who works closely with the mentors, it also got them out of their comfort zones too. It helped them think about new ways to enhance their own research skills, how to explain how to do research to undergraduates, how to deal with that perennial question of do you fish or do you teach them to fish? And they all indicated that they also grew as well. They felt that working with the students really strengthened their soft skills. Someone commented that she had to be really careful to understand because she had two teenage boys where not not to parent but to mentor and what the difference between those two things was, it also helped us with collection development. For those of you who are in special collections and really any part of the library, you know that whatever we spend money on, we really do want people to use and what better way to know that something's going to be used than to know that you already have a student who's working in that area. So two of our curators commented that whenever they started looking at catalogs, they would say, oh my gosh, look, this is something that would be really, really helpful for my freshman fellow and we also gave the freshman fellows an opportunity to use some collections money to purchase materials. So you can see in this slide that and I believe Heidi probably bought these for Kiana, they are women's style books that were used in Kiana's research and they also felt and improved their own research skills. When you begin to think about finding other resources for students, connecting primary sources and secondary sources, you begin to realize that there are other ways to explain it and that you become a better researcher by the time it's all said and done. So challenges, big one, no surprise COVID. We had four freshman fellows in that first cohort. Jessica was able to reach out to three of them and interview them in person before we shut down. After we shut down, she was not able to connect with the fourth freshman fellow. So we have interviews with three of the four. It also meant that the mentors were interviewed via Zoom because we wanted Jessica to concentrate on the graduating seniors first. But I think because we've all worked together for so long, even though it was sort of early days of getting used to connecting on Zoom, I think that those interviews were still very successful. I don't think we, Jessica and I were worried that we might lose a little bit of the give and take that you normally have when you're face to face, but we felt that it really did go quite well. And I would say our biggest failure and it's truly just a matter of time. And for those of you who've seen our report, you'll see just how big our rubric is. We have not had a chance to test it yet. So we are hopeful that we will test it against the work products of this year's group of freshman fellows. I'm saying that to kind of commit us to it. So stay tuned for further work on that. And if anyone looks at the rubric and has some feedback and thoughts, please do share that with us. So next steps, I think we've laid a solid skeleton. So testing the rubric, as I mentioned, the other thing Heidi and I have talked about is it would be really great to talk and we have continued the freshman fellow program. I mean, even during COVID, they were just working remotely, which was a really, really interesting too. So we want to kind of go back and explore what happened there. But we think it would be really valuable to talk to the freshman fellows at the end of their freshman year a little bit more broadly about how the project went and then catch up with them again as seniors to see, do we see anything different or do we see some of the same things that our first cohorts expressed when we spoke with them. We've also been so fortunate that we've been able to avoid mentor burnout because we have brought new mentors into the program. Heidi has mentored across all of the cohorts. And so she has been the through line as it were. But we brought in a couple of our liaison librarians. We just brought in this year, which was so exciting, a colleague of ours and GIS and data services, who is working with a student on a historic map collection that we just acquired. So this student is getting to not only work with the original cartographic materials, but is building in a GIS story map component into it. So we're super excited to see how that's going to turn out. So we'd love to get this larger group of mentors, which I think now numbers about eight from the original four to talk together jointly in a focus group about what they took away from the program. So this is one of this is the way we summed up our report. And I have to give a shout out to Gordon, who I was struggling with the value section. And Gordon, I don't remember exactly what you said when you read it, but you said something to me, which led me to come up with this sentence. So it's partially yours, your sentence to Gordon. Our evaluation demonstrates that young scholars value their deep dive into our collections and the experience impacts or other curricular activities and their sense of community at Hopkins. So this photograph, I don't know, you may remember that first photograph we took, which had the four of them kind of on a poster, which was actually taken for their first blog post. This was taken of the fellows right after they had done their presentations down at Flower Mart. And I showed this to my husband last night and he said, they look extremely pleased with themselves, very confident, and like they really have formed a cohesive community. So that's what we have. And after everyone else is done, Heidi and Josh and I will be happy to take questions. Thank you. Thank you so much, Margaret. That was a very informative and very interesting presentation. We'll now turn the time over to the project.