بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الحمد لله رب العالمين نحمده ونسبحه ونقدسه على ألائه ونعمائه ونشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له واشهد أن سيدنا محمد عبده ورسوله أرسله بالهدى ودين الحق وظهره على الدين كله اللهم صلي وسلم وبارك وترحم على محمد وآل محمد كأوظل ما صليت وسلمت وبارك وترحمت على إبراهيم وآل إبراهيم في العالمين إنك حميد مجيد وصلى الله وسلم على خلفاء نبيك وأهل بيته وأحبته عليا أمير المؤمنين وقائد الغر المحجلين وعلى البضعة الطاهرة فاطنة الزهراء سيدة نساء العالمين وعلى سبطي نبي الرحمة وسيدة شباب أهل الجنة الحسن والحسين عليهم السلام وعلى علي يبن الحسين ومحمد ابن علي وجعفر ابن محمد وموسى ابن جعفر وعلي ابن موسى ومحمد ابن علي وعلي ابن محمد والحسن ابن علي والخلف الهادي المهدي عجل الله تعالى فرجه وسحل مخرجه وجعلنا من أنصاره وعوانه اللهم كل وليك الحجة ابن الحسن صلواتك عليه وعلى آبائه في هذه الساعة وفي كل ساعة وليا وحافظة وقائدا وناصر ودليلا وعينة حتى تسكنه وارضك طوعا وتمابتعه فيها طويلة وجعلنا اللهم من أنصاره وعوانه والمستشحدين بين يديه عباد الله أصيكم وأصي نفسي المضنبة بتقوى الله ولزوم أمره أعوذ بالله من الشيطان غجيم بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم أجعلتم سقاية الحاج وعمارة المسجد الحرام كمن آمن بالله واليوم الآخر وجاهد في سبيل الله لا يستون عند الله والله لا يهدل قوم الظالمين صدق الله العلي العظيم المسجد الحجاج الحمد لله خلال حاجة إلى المسجد الله ولكن this year the Hajj was marked by tragic events the Hajj ended on the day of Eid ايدو الأضحة with sadness with the loss of the life of many innocent hundreds of children's innocent people who had concluded their on that day or some of them were on the way to the Jamarat during the unfortunate stampede that is also suspicious look suspicious and mysterious and still the details are not apparent or not very clear until this moment even the number of the casualties is not very clear until this moment due to the i would say the least thing is the negligence and the disorganization and the mismanagement of the authorities there i i witnessed that first hand for more than 20 years how at the airport you are received very well and we have to speak the truth whether it's جبدة or مدينة but then in the مشاقر especially our fat most of them and mina people are considered a herd of sheep no more than that this is the way they are treated by the authorities that do you know that since 1990 since 1990 only in the mashah of mina only in the area of mina 3500 حجات have lost their life 3500 of the pilgrims from 1990 until recently they lost their life and even this figure which was published declared by the authorities that they are the casualties are 700 is not a real figure the figure is much bigger than that so this is mismanagement the saudis they received many calls from many countries that's let's help you in organizing the حج the عمان of the حج especially in mina in مصدر فا in عرفات but they reject and they insist that they are the only the only authority the only power who has the right an inherent right by god has given to them to organize the حج and yet this is their mismanagement they don't learn from their experiences and what makes the tragedy worse is that they always put the blame on others never ever the saudis they said this is our problem this is our mistake we admit never ever they are infallible معصوم الحمد لله the royal family is very infallible معصوم and always they put the blame this year they put it on iranian حجات african حجات few years ago on the indian حجات before that on the nigerian حجات before that i remember back in the 1980s they put the blame on the yemen حجات but الحمد لله the saudia regime is perfect is very well organized and they do not accept the responsibility this has to change مكة and مدينة belongs to all the muslims worldwide it's not part of saudia arabia it's not a private property of al saoud this is not their private part مكة مدينة حجاز the region of حجاز belongs to all muslims worldwide so we need an international body of muslims to run administer and manage the شعيرة الحج and عمرة to stop these atrocities and these tragic events that are taking place almost every year almost every year we ask الله سبحانه وتعالى to grant the شهداء إن شاء الله their his his مخفر and this is in the quran إن شاء الله they are immediately to paradise ومن يخرج من بيته مهاجرا إلى الله ورسوله ثم يدرقه الموت فقد وقع أجره على الله حين يتركه مهاجر في حجاته عمرة أو حجه يذهب ل to perform these rights and then he dies in the process on the way he or she would die فقد وقع أجره على الله ما هذا يعني هل ترى عندما يذهب إلى رسولة إلى كهفة ومن يقول أنها على مهاجر لا نهاجر على مهاجر الله says it's on me it's on me i'll pay for you if you have sins i will forgive them leave it on me your trip is on me you are my guest فقد وقع أجره على الله and of course if Allah pays and Allah is very generous when he pays then the trip will be immediately the journey will be immediately to him back to him to his paradise but it is very painful that many people were waiting from Iran Pakistan Egypt other countries African people their families their spouses their children were waiting for the parents to come back after performing the Hajj you know the Africans they save the money i've seen many of them his entire life he spends 50 60 years saving money adding these pennies until he can afford going to Hajj and unfortunately this is what they receive by the authorities who consider themselves the قاعدين كاستوديان of حرامين الشرفين كاستوديان of course when the kastodian his focus is on bombing Yemen creating fitna in siria in lebanon in iraq spreading وحابزم and barbarism and tekfirism of course he has no more time left to focus on the حج to take care of the Hajj because the priority now is to destroy the muslims worldwide to kill the innocence in Yemen women and children so there is no more time to organize the Hajj this is the result but Allah says and i am sure my friends my brothers and sisters the days of our سعود are numbered إن شاء الله the days are numbered the days are numbered and you will see إن شاء الله you will witness with your families during these coming months and years how Allah سبحانه وتعالى will take revenge will take revenge for hundreds of thousands rather millions millions of innocent people who were butchered and killed by the money the weapon which was sent by this corrupt regime corrupt regime today saudi arabia is building alliance with israel the strongest allies of saudi arabia in the whole world is the state of israel and this is سبحان الله حقبة السوء ثم كان عقبة الذين أساء السوء and كذبوا بآيات الله when الله سبحانه وتعالى he wants to he writes damnation for someone he makes the end of his journey bad and terrible and this is what we see happening to them and they deserve it because الله gave them many chances to fix themselves but they rejected because they have no faith in الله سبحانه وتعالى اللهم أخفر المؤمنين والمؤمنات والمسلمين والمسلمات الأحياء منهم والأموات تابع اللهم بيننا وبينهم بالخيرات إنك مجيب الدعوات إنك غافر الخطيئات إنك ماح السيئات وجاعلها حسنات اللهم منصر الإسلام والمسلمين اللهم وحد كلمة المسلمين والمؤمنين على الخير والبر والصلاح والتقوى يا أرحم الراحمين اللهم ثبتنا على ولاية أمير المؤمنين اللهم لا تخرجنا من الدنيا حتى ترضى عننا اللهم منصر إخوانا المسلمين في سوريا ولبنان وفي اليمن وفي سائر بلاد الإسلام اللهم عجل في فرج سيدنا وحبيبنا ومولانا وقائدنا صاحب العصر والزمان وإلى أرواح المؤمنين والمؤمنات والشهداء وإلى أيضا إلى المسلمين منهم والذين يمتلوا في منا لتواقف الفاتحة مع الصلاة على محمد وآل محمد


For us to get really going to the opposite of, excuse me, to the right direction of higher prices, they're going to compete to compete. Welcome to Access to Trader, the number one community for those who are committed to taking control of their trading in order to achieve success, profitability, and longevity. Thank you for joining us. Here's Dan Shapiro to help you find your edge, master your process, and own your future. Hey guys, good morning everybody. Welcome to another edition of the AccessToTrader.com weekend update show. Hope everybody is having a great weekend. I'm relaxed, I'm fed, got some color this weekend, got some pool time this weekend, got plenty of basketball this weekend, more basketball to come today for the kids, nonstop journey, and here we are. So let's talk about the tape. If you look at the final numbers, right? And this is where we kind of start and end the week. We kind of digest what happened throughout the week, some headlines, some news, maybe over the weekend, whatever the case may be, and we try to formulate an opinion. That's all we can do, right? If you watched Thursday's video, usually there is no Thursday video, but I took Wednesday off because my son had a basketball game, or was it my daughter? I can't remember anymore. Anyway, the point is, if you watched Thursday night's video, despite four days in a row of the market going lower, you know, I made a little bit of a case that if there's going to be any day that the market was going to rally, it's going to be Friday. And that was because Wednesday, they tried to gap down the market down 2%, and on the Nasdaq, they rallied almost to green. On Wednesday, excuse me, on Thursday, they gap down the market, another down 2%, they brought it back to green. And if you guys remember off Thursday night's video, we talked about the semiconductors being leaders, and once the semiconductors got above the 20-day moving average, that was a very, very bullish case, and the question was, where are we actually going to follow through on Friday? And obviously, if anybody's active in the market, you kind of know we had a pretty big move in the market. Again, that was led by the semiconductors. If you look at the kickoff to earnings this week, three out of the four banks disappointed this week was not a good thing, not really a good macro view of the overall environment. The only one that had a pretty big quarter was Citibank, right? They had a really big quarter, and obviously the stock price reflected that, and obviously the financials led with the semiconductors on Friday to paint the tape pretty well. The Dow up 600 points, I believe the Nasdaq was up like 200 and change, but if you look at the overall scoreboard for the week, you will see that S&P fell 1%, the Dow, even with the 600-point rally, the Dow was still down 2 tenths of a percent, and the Nasdaq, despite a pretty decent rally into the end of the week, the Nasdaq was still down 1.6% for the week. So going into this week, and again, we'll get to the numbers in a second, going into this week is gonna be very, very important. You have IBM and IBM kicking off technology earnings on Monday tomorrow with Goldman Sachs, kind of like the fourth amigo, well, technically the number one, but Goldman Sachs, the fourth amigo to report as well, and then you have Tuesday, right? The two big earnings kicking off technology this week, you have Tuesday, you have Netflix, which everybody again believes, and I think the numbers based on the forecast, and analysts are kinda telling us that they believe that another shrinkage in subscriber growth is going to be reported, so you have Netflix on Thursday, and then the big one you have is Tesla on Wednesday. We'll get to Tesla in a second. I had my own personal demons, which I'm still trying to figure out what they were. But overall, when you look at the technology sector, again, it's trying its hardest to get above water, and above water, if you're watching this for the very first time, is that 50 day moving average.  Again, if you took a shot every single time I said the Nasdaq needed to reclaim the 50 day moving average, you'd be drunk, you'd be an alcoholic, your kidneys would be failing. That's where we are, but that's where we are, right? And unfortunately, that's the reality of where the technology space is, that's the reality where the general speculation money is, and until we reclaim the 50 day moving average going through the upside, it's going to continue to get rejected, just the same way we had this really powerful rally last week, everything was good, until it wasn't because we got rejected off the 50 day moving average and started four days in a row of downward pressure, and obviously Friday the goalie came and kicksaved the market. So for the bulls from the macro point of view to get their head above water, we need at least a close above, at least, okay? I think we need a close at least around 24, right? This 24 level will at least complement this declining slope, that's the 50 day moving average. For us to get really going to the opposite, excuse me, to the right direction of higher prices, they're going to need to confirm 296.75, that was the high from last week, that was the high from last Friday where the bulls got rejected off the 50 day moving average. So right this down, 94 close is definitely a positive step, 97 close is really, really good, and if it starts taking out the supply here later in the week and this supply is going to be a little bit lower, if we can get a close above 98, then you got something to talk about. Then the risk is on, okay? It risk is really on because look how much room you have from 298 all the way to 313. So yeah, I mean, another big week, right? Again, like we always talk about, you know, for the bulls, for the active investor that wants to start allocating real money, more than one or two day rental, yeah, you need some airspace, you need some room to breathe. And again, that 96.75 close will definitely, definitely be a big deal. SMH is again, we talked about Thursday night, broke out above the 20 day moving average, and look what happened the following day, went to the next supply zone for the SMHs.  And again, obviously earnings are going to play a big part of it.  You have a lot of Intel, so forth and so on, AMAC, CLAC, maximum. So you're gonna have a lot of names reporting and obviously the future of the semiconductors, especially in the ETF side, is going to be predicated on the earnings, if they're good, if they're not, the shortage obviously is not going to help, but maybe it will, maybe it'll be digested as, okay, we get it, it's a mulligan, the whole industry's having the problem, maybe they'll just kind of brush it to the side, we don't know yet, right? Until it actually happens. So for the semiconductors to really get a lot of airspace, number one, they're gonna need to get above this whole channel here, which is roughly 20 and a half. Everybody see it here? The high from June the 15th was 220.40 and that is gonna be the linear regression line and that correlates also with the 50-day moving average. So for the semiconductors, again, write this down guys, 220 and a half is gonna be a big level on the close and then look at much airspace you have, you have 220 and a half all the way to 235. Just the same way, you see, take a mental screenshot of this, right? So you see how the SMH is closed on the 20-day moving average and the next day follow-through? Look at the spies, right? It's a carbon copy. Spies closed the same way the semiconductors closed on the 20-day and Thursday. The spies, and again, I get it, Citibank was a major, major deal. Citibank doesn't report that good quarter. We're probably not having this conversation but the scoreboard is the scoreboard and the most important part is if the semiconductors confirm this whole channel here, you know, 387 or so we can start, well, they can start, they can start moving back into this upper range here around this 391. For the spies to break out, it's gonna need a little bit more work and obviously a lot more productive quarters coming into this earnings quarter but if the spies can close above 394, 395, you can see this airspace all to 409. So yes, the bulls need definitely a lot of work to do, to really get that open airspace and obviously this quarter is going to be very, very important. That's the catalyst once the catalyst is out of the way, and if they can't reclaim these big levels it's gonna start moving down. Overall, I thought it was a very solid week. I thought Friday was my most frustrating day of the week and it wasn't even a monetary issue. Usually a lot of people when they talk about good or bad days is based on their performance. If you guys go back to Thursday's video, even though I was expect, well, I can't say the word expect, we were prepared, I think that's the word.  We were preparing for a rally on Friday, right? I think that's the best way of saying it. And the number one name, again, if you've been watching this broadcast for a while, you know, this is the sun, the moon, the earth and everything in between for me. This is the greatest stock I've ever traded in going on my 24th year. There's not even close. If there's a top 10 order, Tesla will probably be one through seven, right? In the greatest stocks around, just because of the speed, the aggression, liquidity, everything in between. And I was so focused on Tesla, okay? So focused on Tesla. I really didn't care about anything else because we knew, we kind of talked about this on the Thursday night video and obviously in the webinar and all that stuff, that if we could reclaim the 50 day moving average again, I thought there was gonna be at least 13 to 15 points minimum on the first move. Because again, if you believe in the theory, this stocks trade from supply to supply and then demand to demand, where here is the supply and then this would have been the next supply. You're talking about 726 to about what, 744? So you're talking about what, 18 points, right? So I was so fixated on Tesla that I pretty much kind of didn't care about anything else because again, all you need is one. And if that one is Tesla, everything's a go. So here's, let me kind of break down my day for you on Friday. And again, congratulations for all you guys for trading the B stocks and the C stocks and the D stocks. We'll get to the pivots in a second. But I was just fixated on Tesla. And we woke up this, we woke up in the morning, the futures were up a little bit. That's fine. Again, we were preparing for an upward cycle. And then I started watching Tesla. And I've been trading Tesla for like six, seven years. And it's very, very rare that you see a buyer come in pre-market. So there was a guy that came in pre-market, I believe it was at $721, $721. And we knew that the breakout of the stock, if you look at the Twitter feed, right? 72620 needs to confirm. That's the 50 days, right? So just keep this number in mind. So the buyer comes in for 20,721. This is at 730 in the morning, 745 in the morning. So he comes in for 20,000, okay? At 721, he gets filled. Mind you, it's very rare you see size at that time, let alone showing. You could be a buyer, you're not gonna be showing your size. You know, usually if you have 20,000 to buy, you'll probably show 500 shares at a time.  That pops up in the little two that way. And so he bought 20,000 at 721.  Goes to 722, right? This is like at eight o'clock in the morning. This is literally happening at eight o'clock in the morning. This guy's just reloading, reloading. I'm pretty confident he's not reloading the scalpel stock for a dollar. So he's reloading, right? Comes back again. And again, I get it. For every buyer, there's a seller. So there was a seller in the crowd as well. But this dude is just buying up stock pre-market, not in the middle of the day, not, you know, towards the end of the day, not after the middle of the close, he's buying a pre-market. Okay, so it looks like a patty and it keeps on selling it to him. So he comes back for another 25,000 at 722. So this guy, to my knowledge, and again, I could do basic math, 20, 20, 20, or 25, 25, 25 is at least 60, 75,000 shares. I believe so, right? So I'm saying to myself, okay, we got 726, we got 726, 20. This dude is panic buying, right? He's panic buying stock. I get it, there's a seller in the crowd. So again, they need to clean up the seller, but the point is it's showing you there's a buyer in the crowd. And the market opens up. And as soon as the market opens up, they start coming right away in the options market. If you go through whatever option scanner you have, they start coming for the 730 weeklies, the 750 weeklies, and not like $5,000, $10,000. They're coming in with size, six, seven figures. Some dude comes in for next weeks, which obviously is going to cover the earnings, but he comes in for next weeks, 1.8 million worth of premium for the 775s. I'm like, let's go, right? So the stock starts, the market opens up, the stock starts just going, right? So there was a little bit of size at a quarter, 725, took some size there, took a little size there, added through like 20, and it keeps on going, right? So it keeps on going, it goes to like 731. Here is the problem, right? Here is the problem. Number one, I've always maintained the stat, take money on the way up, because you never know, right? This is the stock market, it's so random, it's so unpredictable. Okay, always take money. No matter what happens, always take money because nothing is guaranteed. So it goes to 731, here's the problem. As soon as it goes to 731, it goes right back below the 50-day moving average, it's 726, right? Right below. That's a problem, right?  And so then it goes back up, 728, 729, okay, here we go, here we go, comes right back in. Eventually, you have to make that choice, you almost have to turn around, this is kind of using a poker analogy in saying, even though you have the best hand, right? Maybe you're holding the best hand. And I thought I had the best hand based on what we saw pre-market, right? What we saw pre-market, we saw the option flow coming in at the open, okay? And we knew how important that's 726. I'm like, I'm holding aces. Usually talk about, here with me, talk about, listen, if you have a 2.7 offsuit, they'll play the 2.7 offsuit market. But I'm holding aces, I'm holding aces. And the problem is, the longer the stock starts building right back under the 50-day moving average, you have to make that choice, right? You really, really have to make that choice. Do I really muck these aces? I mean, I know what I'm seeing face value. I think I have the best hand. I believe I have the best hand. Let's see what happens. I'm sitting there, sitting there, sitting there, and it's just struggling. It's just struggling, it's just struggling. So I kick it out, right? That's the most important thing. I kick it out. It's basically break even, blah, blah, blah. That's not the point of the money, right? And then I watched the stock not go come back. I see the stock sell off 12 points and goes all the way down to like 7-11. And I was like, wow, we actually made a great read, but it was disappointing. Cause you're saying to yourself, I'm holding aces. And oh, by the way, keep this in mind, the market is rallying at this point, right? All our research that we had the previous day is confirming what's going on. But I'm so fixated because of everything that I'm seeing in Tesla, I got the blinders on and everything else. So all these things, right? All these things will get to the pivots in a second. They start working, right? And Vax, this one, that one, they start working. But I'm not in them, right? I don't care about them at this point. I'm watching Tesla and the buyer comes back again. Another 20,000 comes into 15. Another 20,000 comes up at 16.  Yada, yada, yada, they get to like 720. They never reclaim. And I basically sat there, literally sat there watching this thing the whole day. Frustrated as hell, right? Frustrated as hell. Again, you don't need to have a bad day to have a frustrating day. But I had so much conviction in this trade what is gonna happen to the price action. And unfortunately, and you guys are gonna realize this and hopefully you'll trade for many, many years, sometimes you research, you can be right macro and I was, you know, who cares? You're the most followed. Nobody cares, right? The fact that I was right on my research, it didn't play out the play for me from the monetary aspect because it just was, I was just so fixated on one thing. And again, if somebody's gonna turn it on, well, why are we so fixated on one thing? Well, this one thing, this one little thing is the greatest thing ever created. And it was just one of those days that the research didn't match the performance of the stock. And I get it, there was a massive real seller in the crowd. Is that something that, you know, you can try to read into going into earnings. You know, it's very, very tough. Maybe it does, maybe translates into earnings, maybe it doesn't. If anybody thinks they actually know what's gonna happen on earnings, you're guessing.  Nobody knows what happens to any of these earnings, right? Nothing makes sense. The market's not supposed to make sense. Well, good is good and sometimes good is bad in reverse. So guessing into earnings into any stock, especially Tesla Wednesday, it's a waste of time. It's a waste of conversation. We'll see what happens. But just for Friday's session, you know, I was just very, very frustrated. I don't even think I missed a lot. Again, I'll show you in a second. I don't think I missed a lot, but most important, I was so fixated on this one, I kind of let the day escape me. But again, at the end of the day, it's just one day and who cares what happened. So that was that. So let's talk about the rest of the pivots.  I'm actually very surprised it didn't confirm above this level. I still like it. I'm gonna watch it this week. This that 150 levels will be very, very big. That's where it literally stopped. I'm gonna watch this thing. Has a lot of airspace. It was so ironic that some of the best looking charts with Boeing and Tesla really didn't go out, which is very, very odd. Considering Boeing's Dow component was only up 59 cents on the day as the Dow was up 600. So there's a pretty big head scratcher here. NVIDIA, I still like it.  I still like it. I still think if the market goes, it'll have bigger prices there. Envax right off the open. Again, if you took it, congratulate. I was literally fix it on Tesla the whole morning. 50, if it builds below can flush. Here was Envax, nothing huge. It was just a big, it was just a follow-through from the previous day. NVAX, here was the 50, right? Here was the 50 and went down to 47 and change. I mean, not a bad move, right? Not a bad move. I think we talked about this on the Thursday night video. Nice little move here for all you guys who had runners on Apple, traded right to that 51 level and then it kind of died down a little bit. Nice move in this small, I'll tell you one thing, there was three small caps this week. Had really monster value and really big monster charts. I traded three of them. They were actually pretty good. CLNN for small cap lovers, 430 needs to build. Here was a nice little chart here. CLNN, right here's CLNN. Here took out this whole 430 level, traded up to 485. Nice looking chart. If it gets above that five level, it could probably go more. VERU, nice push here. 1680 needs to build. This thing went right in the afternoon. I still like it this week. So here's, took out the 1680, took out the 1750. This thing starts trading, reclaiming that 18 level. This thing has more room to go. Nice move. I think it's still continuation for this week. So you got this one. I like the Saiga going into this week. Kind of looks like VERU a little bit. If you look at the long base of VERU and you look at Saiga, right? Kind of the same thing. So keep an eye on the Saiga for this week. I like this one as well. So overall, good week. Again, we kind of know where the levels are on the Qs. We know how the levels are on the spies and the SMHs. The key is putting your work throughout the weekend. Know what you want to trade. Don't anticipate those trades. Wait for them to confirm. Because remember, at the end of the day, no matter how strong the market is, until we reclaim the 50 day moving average, strength is very subjective because they can easily roll over and start going the other way. Guys, God bless everybody. Hope everybody stays happy, healthy with a smile on your face. May God continue to bless you all and I will see you all on Monday. Take care.


The last major financial crisis hit the world economy in 2008. It had the potential of becoming a dramatic economic catastrophe on the scale of the Great Depression of the 1930s. In other words, a combination of bank failures and a severe global economic downturn lasting for several years. To understand the financial crisis, you have to first understand how a bank works, then you have to know about the specific risks of a bank and finally it's important to know about how banks trade with each other. With this we can understand the emergence of the financial crisis of 2008 and we can understand the economic response to this crisis. How do banks work? Banks perform an important task for different members of society. Savors want to be sure their money is in a safe place. They also want to be able to withdraw it and use it to make payments at any time. In other words, they only want their money tied up for a very short term. Borrowers, by contrast, whether individuals or companies, want to borrow money for a longer period of time as they invest in real estate or in machines that they can't sell at shorthand. Banks use the deposits of many savers as a basis for loans to individuals or to companies. This practice of coordinating the different timeframes of borrowers and savers is called maturity transformation. This is the major economic benefit of having banks. This is possible because on a regular day only a small portion of the money deposited is withdrawn. This and other important financial crisis mechanisms can be explained using the simple model of a stylized bank balance sheet. We will start by looking at a very simple bank that focuses exclusively on taking deposits and lending money. A balance sheet displays the assets of a company and how these are financed. The assets of a bank are shown on the left. This side shows how the bank uses its funds. How the assets are financed is shown on the right. So this side shows the source of funding. In the case of a traditional commercial bank, the funds come from customer deposits. This money is the basis for loans. This is risky because if a debtor defaults, the money is lost for the bank. The bank must be able to secure these losses by money that actually belongs to the owners of the bank. This is called equity capital. In the case of banks, equity usually makes up a small portion of the balance sheet total. What do you think? What percentage of a typical large bank's total assets was financed through equity just before the financial crisis in 2007? The right answer is 2%. 100 years ago, the percentage was around 20%. After World War II, the percentage dropped from 10% to about 5%. In the boom phase before the crisis, equity only accounted for around 2% of the balance sheet total. This means 98% of the bank was financed with debts. Were a bank not to lend money, it would operate purely as a safe. It would put your money in a safety deposit and that's where it would stay. Instead, the bank uses the money deposited as a basis for loans. For example, to property owners or to individual companies. A bank must also always be in a position to pay out cash to its customers. That is why it must keep a certain amount of cash on hand as part of its assets. Usually, a bank will keep this amount of cash as low as possible because by lending out money, the bank earns from the interest charged on the money lent. By contrast, the bank does not earn any interest with cash. The way a bank makes a profit is by paying lower interest rates to us, the savers, than the interest rate it charges for lending money. That is known as the interest rate spread and constitutes the foundation of basic banking. The interest rate spread compensates the bank for the costs involved with lending money, such as assessing the credit worthiness of the borrowers and their projects. The particular risks of banks. As the chart shows, two things are notably small on a bank balance sheet. And this is where the main risks lie. Firstly, the low level of cash and secondly, the low level of equity capital. The first leads to liquidity risk, the second to solvency risk. The liquidity risk is particularly high for banks because of the described business model. It is a consequence of the fact that a bank's customers have the right to withdraw their money at any time. At the same time, banks use that money as a basis for loans. This money then cannot be converted into cash immediately. As mentioned earlier, banks only keep a small amount of the money in cash because it does not earn any interest on it. The small amount of available cash exposes banks to the risk of what is referred to as a bank run. The cash of a bank is not enough if a large number of savers want to withdraw their money at the same time. When customers are worried that their bank is in distress, it can happen that they all at the same time want to withdraw their money. Without being aware, they trigger the bank failure, they so fear. The bank then fails because it quickly runs out of cash. Before the Second World War, bank runs happened quite frequently. The worst bank run in history was the main trigger of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Thereafter, an economic solution was found for this problem. It is called the deposit insurance. A deposit insurance protects bank customer deposits from losses in the event of a crisis. In Switzerland, for instance, a customer's first 100,000 francs deposited at a bank are insured. This means that in the event of a bank failure, the deposit insurance provides a guarantee. It guarantees that the state will step in and pay out to the customers. As a result, customers have no longer any reason to withdraw their money, even if the bank is in distress. Since the introduction of this protective measure, there has practically been no classic bank run. The second important risk is the solvency risk. When a company suffers losses, these losses must be borne by the company owners. That is to say, the equity providers. If the losses are too high, a company may become insolvent. The company's liabilities are then higher than its assets. In the case of our simple bank, such losses can arise when the value of claims on loans drops. This reduces the equity capital of the bank. If, for instance, banks have given many loans to companies that become unable to repay their debts due to an economic crisis, this can cause the banks to become insolvent. Because the equity capital of typical banks is rather low, the risk of being unable to absorb all the losses is relatively high. As a result, the solvency risk in banking is significant. How banks trade with each other? To understand the origins of the financial crisis, we need to expand our stylized balance sheet with the trading business and the money market. This is an additional business and an additional form of financing. Banks made large debts on the money markets in order to invest in securities. Here, too, the banks try to earn money through the interest rate spread. Securities are assets owned by the bank on which it can earn revenues. Prior to the financial crisis, a second source of funding besides customer deposits became more and more important – money market debts. For this purpose, the banks take on additional debts, not from us bank customers, but on the money market from other banks and large companies. Similar to customer deposits, these debts are very short-term. In other words, money market debts are loans to the bank. They typically have a term of one day and then they have to be repaid or to be renewed. And, as with loans, the bank earns by paying a lower interest on the money used for funding these securities purchases. In the run-up to the financial crisis, the interest rate banks had to pay on these money market debts was very low. As a result, this type of financing was relatively cheap and it was easy to get. This means that for years it could be easily renewed on a daily basis. As soon as funding is incurred on the money market, that debt is not owed to customers, but to companies and, above all, to other banks. If a bank incurs a debt with another bank, that bank gives the other bank a promissory note and receives money for it. But for the bank lending the money, the promissory note is a security on the asset side of its balance sheet. Now, if a bank goes bankrupt, then that promissory note suddenly becomes worthless for the other bank and has to be written off. This loss reduces the other bank's equity capital and, can in turn, drive that bank into insolvency. And that is what presented a major risk. Before the financial crisis, the banks were strongly interconnected because they lent ample amounts of short-term money to each other. What led to the financial crisis that hit in 2008? We now have all the basics to understand the financial crisis. In the following, we will describe what happened in the immediate wake of the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers Investment Bank in September 2008. It is a self-reinforcing downward spiral, and that is the basic mechanism of any financial crisis. A characteristic typical for any financial crisis is that it can happen very quickly. The financial system can literally collapse within a matter of hours. If this spiral would not have been stopped in time, the global financial system probably would have collapsed, with fatal consequences for all of us. In the years preceding the financial crisis, the global economic situation was remarkably good. It was easy to make large amounts of money on the financial markets, and the risks were seen less and less. As mentioned earlier, above all, the banks substantially expanded their trading activities. They purchased an ever-increasing number of securities, funded through short-run money market debts. With time, the banks also started to buy very risky securities. However, given the excellent situation of the world economy, these risks were not easy to detect. But for various reasons, doubts emerged in 2007 and increasingly in 2008 as to the recoverability of certain securities. In particular, securities connected with the U.S. housing market were increasingly being called into question as to their recoverability. As a result, more and more financial market participants started to sell these securities. As trust in these securities lacked and there were no buyers, the prices of these securities started to drop heavily. This triggered a downward spiral for all banks. Given that the banks had a large number of these securities in their balance sheets, their equity capital shrunk considerably as a result of these losses. This meant that the solvency situation of the banks concerned deteriorated more and more. All of this happened fairly quickly and hit a large number of banks worldwide simultaneously. This made it very difficult to assess how solvent the individual banks still were. Suddenly the fact that the banks had financed these securities with short-term money market debt became a problem. They had to renew these debts every single day. Such short-term money market debts had not been a problem in the past. But now the banks faced increasing difficulties because all of a sudden it was unclear whether these banks were still solvent. In other words, whether they had enough money to repay their debts. As a result, they received less money from the money markets. This is how a solvency problem suddenly resulted in a serious liquidity problem and thus in the other previously described bank problem. The outcome was ultimately reminiscent of a bank run. But in 2008, the situation was not that the customers wanted their money back. Rather, the money market lenders no longer renewed their loans. But the effect was the same. The banks ran out of money at breakneck speed. Nobody expected the bank run because everybody thought there is a deposit insurance. But there is no deposit insurance for money market debts. The banks needed to gain quick access to cash so as to be liquid. For this purpose, they had to sell what they owned and turn it into cash. A bank with almost no cash still owns two things. Claims on loans and securities. Loans are almost impossible to sell. They are individual contracts that cannot be sold in a market, especially not quickly. However, securities can be sold in a market. And that is why all of the banks concerned began to throw their securities on the market in an effort to obtain cash. But because they all did this at the same time, the market was full of sellers versus hardly any buyers. The logical consequence of such a situation in any market is that prices drop. This meant that securities prices dropped drastically yet again. And this did not just affect the prices of dubious securities but of all securities. With that, the system returned to the starting point of the spiral. Due to the renewed drop in securities prices, this time on a wide scale, equity capital decreased even more, thus further exasperating the solvency problems. Typically for financial crisis is that liquidity risks and solvency risks are mutual amplifiers. And the bank's desperate attempt to obtain liquidity is what puts the solvency of the entire system into question. If this spiral were left to continue, it would push the entire financial system into the abyss within a very short time. The Global Policy Response Global politics feared a repetition of the Great Depression of the 1930s when a series of bank failures triggered the, by far, worst global economic downturn of the last century. Economic policies attempted, first of all, to stop the banks from selling more securities to maintain liquidity. Otherwise, these securities would have become worthless. And so, more and more banks would have become insolvent, including banks that held high quality securities. The first measure was for the central banks to give money to the banks and, in return, to take over the banks' claims on loans or securities as collateral. This liquidity support is not a bank bailout in the usual sense. It is an agreement between the central bank and the bank that the banks get liquidity in exchange for high quality securities. And that is precisely why central banks were created. Because financial crises have occurred repeatedly as far back as the 19th century when, per se, solvent banks ran out of liquidity very quickly. However, a second policy measure was necessary. Because many securities were almost worthless due to careless money-lending in the pre-crisis boom period, liquidity support alone was not enough. Ultimately, liquidity support is of no use if the banks become insolvent due to such losses. It soon became clear that far more extensive measures were needed to prevent a collapse of the banking system. These ultimately consisted of preventing banks from insolvency by means of the state stepping in and strengthening bank equity. The combination of liquidity and solvency support put an end to the downward spiral. This prevented large-scale bank failures. But this required taking really drastic measures because solvency support is nothing else than a direct subsidy to a bank. But this subsidy means taking taxpayers' money to save banks that have taken life-threatening risks. But the alternative would have been so unattractive that the authorities were left with no other choice. The collapse of major banks, potentially even the entire banking system, would have caused a monumental economic downturn. Let us illustrate this point. During the Great Depression, U.S. industrial production was halved, and unemployment rose from 3% to over 25%. Thanks to the described measures, such dire scenarios were prevented. Many ingredients of the recent financial and economic crisis resembled those of the Great Depression. Because the crisis of the 1930s was thoroughly analyzed, the lessons were learned for avoiding a second Great Depression. Specifically, there were three lessons learned from the Great Depression. Do not allow a bank run to occur. Save system-relevant banks. And absorb the effects on the real economy with expansive monetary and fiscal policies. This presentation has focused on the first two measures which are directly linked to the banks and the financial system. The most important lesson from the crisis is clear. It is incredibly dangerous if large banks with low equity capital take enormous risks. Because if a bank is of a certain size, the government has to step in to save it in the event of a crisis. That is not compatible with a fair and efficient market economy system. This is why, in the wake of the crisis, strong, internationally coordinated efforts were made to make the banking system more crisis resistant by means of regulatory adjustments. Decisive factors in this respect were the significant increase of capital requirements, especially for system-relevant banks. These requirements were agreed upon in what was called the Basel process and have since been largely implemented.


Hi, good morning and welcome to our Open Professions round table. We have our Open Professions certified panel here, our panel of experts arrayed around the table for a little bit of a discussion here. We've got some questions that we'd like to ask you and I think this is a really great representation of folks who've been working in the industry for a while, have many different certifications and have gone down the path of becoming professionally certified and have some great experience with the Open Group program. And so let's get started here and ask a few questions. I'll ask a question, a couple of folks will answer and we'll try to get around the table as fast as we possibly can. So first question is, how has the Open Professions certification evolved since you first obtained your certification from the early days?  I think Paul, you'd be a great person to answer that one. Yeah, well, so my first certification came about 15 years ago, so a reasonable amount of time for it to evolve over. I'm certified in the architect professions. I'm going to focus mostly on that one, but clearly we've added other professions like data science in that time as well. So, you know, those are some of the changes, but if I think about predominantly the architect one, it's become, I think, broader and more inclusive. And what I mean by that is originally the certification questions when I went through had been formed from the experiences of architects working on solutions on large projects, for example. So that was the kind of the main core of where the body and the work had come from. And it needed a little bit of interpretation for some of the emerging areas, including areas like enterprise architecture. And certainly as enterprise architecture and competencies like business architecture have become more mainstream, information architecture, security architecture type specialisms have become part of that. The certification has grown to accommodate those more obviously. I think it's they've always been part of it. They've not been excluded, but it's been more deliberately aligned to sort of understand how those specialisms fit within the whole family of the profession and the field of architecture and what is core. And just behind that, I would say, though, the nice part is it hasn't flipped and flopped with fashion. It definitely persists with what I would see as a kind of enduring capability, but with present practice. Excellent. So another question here is what does your company get out of supporting open profession standards and certification programs? Scott, you just became kindral. How is it helping you guys evolve? You know, I think there are two things that supporting open professions really does for us. One is that it helps us bring together our professionals with a shared body of knowledge in doing so that really helps us to both communicate internally as well as communicate not only among the architect profession, but to communicate with the many varied professions that we have. That set of common realized knowledge and standards really helps us to get the work done that we need much more efficiently. But more than that, being able to participate in a set of common standards not only helps us inside our organization, but externally with our clients as well, especially for those that also support the open profession standards. It gives us a common language to be able to use. We think about architecture in the same way. We talk about architecture in the same way. And along with that as well, we organize similarly. So when we get together to do work, we're really working in concert as one common extended team. Great. That's awesome, Scott. So Ling, how does your company, you know, how do you help your company get value out of your certification? Well, at a personal level, I find that the certification program helps drive mentoring within my organization. So for instance, you know, as I mentor others in their career progression, I am able to use the certification program as a roadmap to help my mentees build those skills and experiences that are able to be useful for them as they tackle projects and deliverables. So as this pervades through the organization, it helps to accelerate the capability of the organization and promote a culture of mentoring. So that is how. Thank you very much. Awesome. Phil, how do you kind of come from a different perspective in your career? So how has it helped you and the company, you know, go after more business? So first of all, thank you for asking me to join today. I look to the open group and the professions as an external reference point. It helps myself and the organizations that I work for to orientate inside the universe that is the IT industry. It establishes a benchmark for professionalism and it's a North Star. It's the point at which we aspire to engage in a professional manner to undertake very complex pieces of work to the best of our ability. I guess that's it. It's the base standard. It's the gold standard. Everything from there on up is essentially what we do as professionals. Well, that's a great way of putting it. I love the idea that you think of the program as the gold standard. I think that we're going to put you on all the commercials from now on. So yeah, thank you very much. So let's see here. So how does being certified as a professional, you know, how do you how do you give somebody, you know, who's just starting out in your career now that you are certified advice to achieve a professional certification? Maureen, one of the things that one of the things I would advise is think about the certification really as a career model, something that can help you on your journey. It embraces the concept of this is not just a job, right? This is a profession and professions have to be trusted. And to do that, you have to meet certain standards. And so I would say, look at what those standards are early. And as you are going through a project, you know, you'll know what you should document. And in fact, the questions are going to help you even do the projects better. We have many data scientists at IBM who really have found a lot of value in just how they have to fill out some of the information for certification. And it's really, I think the beauty of it is this is a globally recognized standard. And unlike so many certifications that are in the market right now, the open group one is professional and it's vendor neutral and methodology based. And so it applies no matter where you go in your career. That's a great way of thinking about it. Phil, I had a same question. How do you help mentor and bring up new folks grow talent? So there's a lovely saying, which is that good people look after good people. And the emphasis you can read good many, many ways there. So good relates to, again, a professional standard. It's an entry point. It's so from a career perspective, from a framework perspective, it's essentially it's a destination for the young guys. And it's incumbent upon fellow professionals to guide other professionals to lead the other one, as it were, through the minefield of their early career, to ultimately get them to a point where they're on a level. Very early on in your career, as everybody on this call will know, you are bombarded with techniques that when you were a student, you would never ever thought you would need such like coming across new weapons, you need to know how to wield them safely. And it's all part of the journey. It's a roadmap, it's a destination, it's a framework. It's a suit of armor. It's all of those things wrapped into one. Why would you not want to take part and aspire to be part of a program like this one? Excellent. So let's move on to another question. Thanks, Phil. So how does the Open Professions Certification support equality and diversity in the workplace in the industry? Because that is a big focus. And obviously there have been some built in systematic issues with equality in the past. But how do we address that in the Open Professions program? Stephanie? As a woman in enterprise architecture in the beginning, I felt kind of alone over the years. It seems like we have added more diversity to the program. I remember my first class, I was the only woman out of 30. But I ask every now and then, you know, how many women are in the class now, classes now, and it's quite a few more. And as I'm mentoring others, there's a lot of women getting into the field as well, as well as, you know, other diverse diverse areas. And Ling, what's your take on that? Well, I feel that the fact that the certification program is developed by an independent body, such as the Open Group, lengths the itself to be vendor neutral. So it's not biased towards IBM or Raytheon or CGR. You know, it is administered independently. And that promotes equality and, you know, the fact that everybody is working against a set of well-defined requirements that is quantifiable. And in terms of diversity, the fact that everybody is working towards a common framework takes relationship out of the equation so that, you know, the manager is able to promote or recognize employees just based out of a common standard. Excellent. That is a really great way of looking at it. Maureen, what's your take? My take is that we've had several women in IBM who have communicated to me. One of the things they love about the certification process is they found it actually very empowering because it wasn't reliant on their manager or their even business unit. They were able to meet these standards. They know that they're global. They're even recognized by the British computing society. And it made them feel much more confident in their skills and their ability to apply those skills and drive business outcomes. So the other comment I want to make is that when we were putting the program together, diversity has to be baked in right at the beginning, right? So we've had diverse companies. We've had diverse people working on these standards. And and within some of the larger companies such as IBM, we have a governance board where we make sure for the professions, there's diversity representation there. So it's certainly not a one size fits all. But by having these kind of open open profession standards, I think it really supports the diversity that we're after. Right, really provides the guardrails for ensuring equality amongst individuals that one person, whether they're female, well, you know, regardless of geographic residency, race or whatever, is measured in the same way. So really great points, guys. So, yeah, I mean, I see a lot of public sector requirements for past perform and so on and so forth. So, you know, how can open profession certification support companies that bid for opportunities in the public sector?  Well, I've certainly both worked in the public sector in the past, but also, you know, work into various different organizations now and companies that provide into the public sector. So what I would say is, you know, the public sector and the procurement in the public sector clearly, you know, it kind of leads away in that kind of openness and equal opportunity for all to be able to put into. I think that's that's the kind of the the the most stringent sort of need for that equality. But actually, it's true for all industries. A lot of industries like to be able to ensure that a full ecosystem of suppliers have an opportunity to be able to bid into these sorts of things. So I think what counts of public sector counts for others as well. But basically, it's just evidence, right? I mean, it's what it does in the same way that we talked about diversity. It's 100 percent merit based and it's evidenced and it's evidenced that it's current. And I think that's an important part of the professions. This isn't a I've got the badge. I did it 15 years ago. I've had to research by every three years to prove I'm still practicing. I'm still doing what that badge says that I'm doing. And so public sector clients, but but but but any industry actually is has that assurance that the people can evidence what they've done that they've got that past performance and that they're still currently practicing it. And it's fully unbiased and removes all personal subjectivity from that assessment. Ling, you know, you're focused 100 percent on public sector. How is your company or how are you helping your company drive value as you go to market for the public sector? Sure. So for federal contracts, you know, there is typically an inclusion of past performance and the key personnel in the request for proposals or RFP. And just like what Paul has mentioned, you know, providing the certification as a qualification in the resumes to submit certainly helps to increase the visibility of the submissions. So I frequently use my credential to support my case of seniority in responding to RFPs. And on the flip side for the government customer, the certification is one way where you can find the best vendor to carry out the work at hand. Excellent. Yeah. So it really helps you actually compete for business in the public sector because there's a requirement for professionalism and expertise. That's that guys. That's a really great point. So Maureen, you actually are the chair of the Open Professions Board work group. So you have some visibility into how things have kind of changed over the years, even though you weren't there at the very beginning, you helped actually you sponsored open CDS, open certified data scientists. So it's going on 20 years now. I cannot believe we've been around for 20 years, right? Times just flown and, you know, but things have evolved and how they've evolved is really important because we've kind of matched with what's going on in the industry. So how do you think things have changed and where are we going in the future? Great question, Andres. I think what we've seen is an explosion of certifications in the market. Right? People are understanding that certifications drive value, implement standards and help people work more productively together and in fact help build a community. And there's a lot right now of focus on, you know, product related certifications and they're great for building skills. But I see going forward in the next 15 years a greater emphasis on professional level certifications because that's really what encompasses the fact that you not just have those skills, but that you're applying it in a agreed to standard methodology. That's repeatable, that it can evolve over time for areas like AI and data science. Things keep changing so quickly and the standards will be kept up to date with them. So, you know, ethics and trustworthy is very big. So I see more of those kind of certifications and requirements being built in. So it's very much alive and well going into the future in terms of helping the different professions really become even more trusted by the client base.  I'll tell you, looking back on this, I've had the opportunity to be involved in the professions nearly from the start. And one of the really great things to build on what Marina talked about is we've got this common thread that we've used throughout time, which is based upon the value of the professions and of the standards in that to be able to provide a baseline. But along with that as well, we've shifted over time. So as business architecture emerge, that surface to the top, as data science emerge, that is surface to the top. And as we look forward on this in my organization, one of the things that we think is going to be very important as Marina brought up, aligned with those product certifications, is to be able to make sure that the professions evolve over time in order to support not only what's going on in the industry, but to support the entire ecosystem. We're a portion of that overall ecosystem and play that very important part, which is we're providing the baseline as Phillips said, the North Star for what you should hope to achieve. And I think over time we'll evolve to be able to continue that role. Excellent. So speaking of Phil, Phil, and how you've been around for a long time, you're a senior guy, right? So you've got to have tons of experience helping mentor folks. So how do you engage with somebody just starting off? And is it just me or is it Andras dropped out? How did you prepare to complete your certification experience? Let's start. I'm a little bit ready for it. So you have a drop to turn into a Dalek. Yeah, hold on one second here. Let's see if we get Ling. Hopefully nobody else is using house video here, but I guess we'll have to wait for Comcast to come back for a second. It's good. Thank you. Yeah, you're good from where I am now. I'm dressing everything seems fine. I can see you. See you too. OK, so Ling, you want to come back on video? Oh, I see what's happening here.  I say one, two, three, four, five, six. There we go. All right, I don't understand why that something. All right, so let's get that over again. So Phil, speaking of expertise, you must have had all sorts of opportunities to help mentor people in their career. How do you actually help them prepare to complete their certification experience profiles and badges? So when I saw this question was on the table, I was I was smiling, clapping my hands. I'm going to steal from Paul's words. He talked about evidencing and he talked about currentness or currency. So certainly in the larger organizations like IBM, the need to evidence current capability is at the forefront all of the time. We're repeatedly asked to be able to describe what we can do and justify our existence for good reasons, for reasons of professionalism and market readiness and a whole lot of other things. However, I'm going to bring this down to the level of human experience. I'm minded to remember a very eminent IT architect in IBM. God bless him now. He's retired. But he used to say the best part of the day was early on when he was walking his dog. And he said I do my best thinking and what he was actually saying was certainly what I do every morning. I spend a lot of time talking to my dog when I walk it. And the reason for that is I'm trying to actually work out what's going to happen during the day. And it's a process.  So that's what I encourage my mentees to do. Again, there's a lovely expression, which is if you can't explain something to yourself, don't even bother trying to explain it to anybody else. Yeah, it's almost cathartic first, which is a lovely experience. Being an IT architect is not something that you you would wish to pass down the generations if you were truthful about it. But actually, those who aspire, those who do grasp the net as it were, they deserve the best of care. And that's what we should give them as a profession, as mentors. And what you actually need within that is somewhat to some degree, a lack of free expression that needs to be structured, there needs to be rigor, there needs to be an element of difficulty involved so that you actually know that you have accomplished something when you get to the point when you can explain to the world who you genuinely are and what you genuinely do. So what I always say to people is it's not going to be hard and don't expect you're going to win, but actually it's about winning. It's about running the race. And I hope I've said a whole lot of good things in one place there.   Just that one of the things actually that the program did for me was get me out externally and internally contributing to the architecture discipline. And so one of the things that I help a lot of people with is making those connections to externally contribute to the discipline and internally as well. Because we have a lot of ways that that can be done. We have symposiums internally where you can go and speak. And then, of course, the open group has conferences that you can speak at, as well as forums that you can join and contribute to the discipline by creating reference architectures and frameworks and things that really help the enterprise architecture. Discipline. So I usually try and get the people that I'm mentoring involved in some of those types of things. And that helps them grow. And it's helped me grow as well, just doing that, those internal and external contributions to the architecture discipline. Excellent. So I got a question for you, Paul, because, you know, I keep getting this one over and over again. And that is, you know, can I only get professionally certified after I get my TogaF certification? Yeah, a common misperception. So the simple answer is no, but I'll kind of expand on that. So there are many, many methods that are approved, permitted for, you know, within the professions. And if I look at the architect profession in particular, then, yes, there are many that you could have. TogaF is, in course, one of them. And a couple of things even within that. When you look at the adoption of any method, you don't adopt it strictly. I mean, you know, it's sort of that you have to tailor TogaF twice, as we all know, if you're familiar with TogaF. So how people adopt method and use method is a big part of that. The one thing I would say is what we're looking for is a structured architectural approach that demonstrates an element of consistency, repeatability, options considered, you know, helps that structured thinking, solid thinking that then leads to decision making. And the reason we do that is because what you're really trying to evidence and put forward is that what you're doing is repeatable with consistent outcomes and is based on a recognized good practice. Yep, excellent. So last one, or last couple, shall I say, OpenCDS is developing a new badge, comes with four level one. Maureen, what are you guys doing? What's going on there? We are innovating, Andres. So as we said, we try to keep the profession alive. And what we are introducing is a credential that comes before the level one experienced so that people in the data sciences profession who are perhaps students or in boot camps who have some hands-on skills that they can use will enable them to kind of get on the certification path early. It's kind of a fast start for them so that they're, they don't have to have client projects where they've driven outcomes like you do for level one, the experience level. And, but you can use the hands-on, maybe you've done some projects within an academic setting or a boot camp to earn this credential. And it will give you that fast start to your career because it'll show you what the coming standards are and really kind of help that transition. So we're very excited to introduce this and launch it shortly. So you're gonna trial it and it might show up in other profession certification programs as well later on. That's what the hope is, yes. Awesome, that's some great work there. So, a lot of folks are saying like, I have many vendor and training certifications so why should I get professionally certified? So this is kind of like a great ending question. Scott, what do you say to those people? You know, I get that question all the time. And what I do is I split the difference between what it means to be certified from a product perspective, as opposed to what it means to have an open profession certification. One, the product certification is about the content of a body of knowledge, making sure that you have learned that and being able to utilize that in a question and answer type experience. The other open profession certification is really about that experiential work. As Maureen just noted, having actually gone out and performed that in a client setting or within your own organization, being able to deliver projects using that information. That is a distinct difference. And to me and the way I explain it to both the organization that I have professional leadership in for certification, as well as directly to those that I mentor and to the professional staff that I have, is the fact that being able to actually demonstrate that you've performed this capability is a significant differentiator and is a strong reason to support the overall certification path, the plans to grow your career and the reason behind wanting to pursue a step-wise ability to increase your own knowledge and to be able to demonstrate that externally. Excellent. Well, thank you very much. This has been an excellent panel. And if you have any questions of these folks, you can certainly send them in and we'll be ready and willing to engage you with the opportunity to become professionally certified. So thank you very much.


If you feel depressed in America and you go to your physician or psychiatrist, you'll often be prescribed medication that said to regulate certain levels of neurotransmitters in the brain, which leads you to logically believe that depression is just a chemical imbalance. Right? Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn't. In this video, I thought I would share a very alternate point of view if you're someone who really wants to heal from depression. Hey guys, I'm Dr. Alex Hine, author of the health book Master of the Day and Doctor of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine. So before we jump into this video here today, there's two very important links right below the video. The first is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine, you can reach out and contact my private practice right below this video. And the second is for a free guide, which is four daily rituals that can potentially help you out of your steer life with Chinese medicine. So those are right below. Depression is a particularly interesting illness if you want to call it that or disease. It's one of the oldest conditions listed throughout many traditional cultures alongside cancer, interestingly enough. And depression is something that is very intimately linked to the human experience. For example, people can develop clinical depression just contextually, just based on the circumstances of their life, right? Food shortage, jobs they hate, working multiple jobs, exhaustion, war, famine, all kinds of issues can contextually lead to depression that's clinical on its own. And so because life has historically been much, much harder than in modern times, depression has always been a facet of human experience, of the human experience. But the way we've treated it has not always been the same. Now I thought I would share a very interesting anecdote from someone who is visiting the Rwandan culture and the Senegalese because I thought this was very, very telling. But the author Andrew Solomon talks of his travels with the Rwandans and he said that we had a lot of trouble with Western mental health workers who came here immediately after the genocide and we had to ask some of them to leave. Their practice did not involve being outside in the sun, which is after all where you begin to feel better.   There was no acknowledgement that the depression is something invasive and external and that could actually be cast out of you again. Instead, they would take people one at a time into these dingy little rooms and have them sit around for an hour or so and talk about bad things that had happened to them. We had to get them to leave the country. So this author was juxtaposing the modern healer, which was the physician, the psychiatrist, bringing these people with trauma and depression into a dingy little room and tell me about your feelings and your depression to prescribe a medication against the way traditional cultures view depression as an illness of the spirit. Now look, even clinically within modern biomedicine, there are myriad causes of depression. They tend to call it the biopsychosocial model. So biological factors like physiological reasons, most commonly we think of neurotransmitters related, right, SSRIs. Psychological reasons, they can be intrusive thoughts, they can be fears and phobias, it can be all kinds of things. And obviously social factors, right? Someone who has an awful purposeless job, who has worked in the bone, of course is likely to suffer from anxiety or depression, or the mother who doesn't have any healthy food to eat on a yearly basis because she's in a food desert and she's working three jobs and sleeping five hours a night. Of course she's going to meet a lot of criteria for clinical depression. So it is undeniable though that a piece is no doubt about it physiological. I mean the main way I clinically treat depression in Chinese medicine is with Chinese formulas, which is pharmacological in some ways no different from giving an antidepressant. So I'm not here in any way saying that it is a not a non-physiological condition or physiology is not one key piece, it is. But to just put depression on the back burner as it's just neurotransmitters and we leave it at that and you just take your meds and go about your life is a tragedy, honestly. That's the nicest way I can say it. It's a tragedy and it devalues this illness of the spirit that can be so much more for the patient, there can be so much more healing and so much more of an evolution that comes from it as opposed to swallowing a little white pill every day. But to me, ultimately, it's important to think of depression as a disease or an illness of the human spirit because that is the only point of view I have seen that leads to true and permanent healing. Healing of the human spirit can come in many different kinds.  But depression in many ways is similar where the person may need to change every aspect of their life if they want to heal from this condition. They may have to change their diet so that it's not as pro-inflammatory. They may need to get divorced for some people because they're literally in a prison that is killing their spirit and mentally they feel as if they're dying of cancer being in an unhealthy marriage or an abusive relationship. For others, it's quitting their job because it has no purpose and no meaning and they don't feel valued there or like there's any reason to be there besides getting money to exist. And for others, it's the entire way they view their lives or their mindset and philosophy around living. But all these changes can only come if you view depression as an illness of the spirit. Yes, the physiology, but primarily of the human spirit. And while there are many things that can affect the human spirit ranging from antidepressants all the way to shamanic rituals and religious ecstatic experiences, the way a person lives their life ultimately is a reflection of not only their spirit but the factors that affect the spirit. Is your job something that's enlivening, literally enlivening, leads to more life? Or is it something that depresses you? I mean, look at all the memes on the internet about nine to five jobs and what is happy hour? It's where all the miserable people congregate after their jobs. I mean, the way a human being lives his or her life is a reflection of the state of the spirit. And for so many people, if it begins and ends with it's just chemical imbalance, I just take this little pill and the healing ends there because there is no healing. There's just palliation. There's just, let me get through this day.  I can show up to my job and that's great. But there's never progression and a healing response, a proper healing that comes from it. If it's just you does some pesky chemicals instead of this is a gift and this is an illness of the spirit that I need to tackle, yes, externally, but also internally as well. So my opinion, yes, depression has an absolutely undeniable physiological side. Zero doubt about it. It's the primary way I clinically treated, but not just that. It's not just that. It is also a gift and an illness or disease of the spirit. And if you view it that way, you're going to find you're able to unlock another part of your life that will lead to more permanent healing and more permanent freedom than just taking medication or smoking joints or whatever it is that helps you with that for the rest of your life. And ultimately, if it doesn't produce that kind of healing response, that kind of catharsis, then what's the point? Because there is no healing. So that's my two cents for today, my impassioned rant. Again before you guys go, check out the links below the video and the related video right over there.


My first my first period class attending school in the United States was computers I never owned a computer in Jordan. So Everybody seemed to know what they were doing. We had to do these PowerPoint slides, you know Presentations and I just had no idea What I was doing, you know, I tried to ask some of the people sitting next to me And I didn't really get any help and at that point I really felt that I didn't belong here a couple periods later it was math class and Everybody had to get a scientific calculator and I was answering questions without using the calculator, you know And at the thing that point I felt like okay Maybe I'm not good at computers, but I have other skills that I can make up for you know next period was French I and I became the kid the weird kid that was better at French that was in English, you know, and I think You know, I learned a big lesson there that my colleagues or they weren't they weren't even my friends yet They would come up to me and ask me for help in math and French, you know So I learned the lesson there where it's okay to ask a question, you know, I said, okay, they're coming up to me asking me About math and French in their own country. So why can I ask them to I mean I was horrible in science And while while I was studying in Arabic so you can only imagine how how hard it was coming here I mean, we were learning in seventh grade about homo sapiens and I was like, well What does that even mean, you know, this is how I adapted I you know, I learned how to ask questions I learned how to not be embarrassed, you know of asking the questions or embarrassed of who I am You know, I I was 12 years old, but I knew I was an immigrant I wasn't from here and if I didn't ask I wasn't ever gonna learn So I think that's how I overcame the challenge of feeling that I didn't belong here


Why having foreign language experience makes you a better teacher? When one begins to study a new language, they can often find themselves to be a bit overwhelmed. Language acquisition is not an easy task, and it comes with many challenges and difficulties attached. Although, as ESL teachers, we are trained to look out for common errors and given the best teaching ideas and methodologies to use in the classroom, it can sometimes feel as though something is missing. Teachers who have studied a foreign language and have had experience using the language possess that missing piece, and their foreign language experience makes them better teachers. Teachers were once in their students' shoes. These ESL teachers were once in their students' shoes, they, too, were foreign language students. Having studied a foreign language provides ESL teachers a deeper consciousness and understanding of what they are implementing in the classroom. Not to say that teaching English and teaching, for example, French, is done in the exact same way, however, they do share many similar teaching techniques, such as role playing, drilling, and gap fills. For example, while an ESL teacher was studying a foreign language, he or she might have found that guided role playing was a fun way to use new vocabulary while also applying a new language concept that they had just learned. They also might have found that authentic texts were much too challenging for their level and would have preferred to read material that contained language more suited for their abilities. This gives ESL teachers an opportunity to reflect and analyze how they were taught their foreign language and to select elements and activities that they found beneficial to their language acquisition and implement it in their lessons. Having foreign language experience helps teachers. Having foreign language experience also enables ESL teachers to possess a unique perspective in the classroom that can make them more empathetic and understanding of some of the difficulties and challenges of learning a foreign language. If an ESL teacher had studied the language of his or her students, he or she would clearly understand why their students make certain errors. For example, I have been studying Spanish for over five years, and I speak the language fluently. If my students were native Spanish speakers, I would have a lot of insight as to why they may struggle with phonetics and pronunciation. Although English and Spanish have a very similar alphabet, not all sounds in English and in Spanish are articulated in the same manner or in the same location of the mouth. I would know exactly why they would have difficulties pronouncing certain letters and sounds and how to correct it. Due to my foreign language experience, I would be more understanding of why my students make certain errors, and I would be able to give better feedback. Are you ready to teach English as a foreign language? In summary, having foreign language experience can only benefit an ESL teacher and their students. It allows a greater consciousness and understanding of what the ESL teacher implements in the classroom based off of his or her past experiences as a foreign language student. It also enables them to be more empathetic and understanding of the difficulties of learning a foreign language. Carrying this unique perspective in the classroom and possessing a deep knowledge of their students' native language enables ESL teachers to give better feedback and teach better lessons. All of these elements give ESL teachers with foreign language experience an edge, and overall, it makes them better teachers. Speak with an ITTT advisor today to put together your personal plan for teaching English abroad. Send us an email or call us toll free at 1-800-490-0531 to speak with an ITTT advisor today.