not gonna lie I'm ready for 2022 to be over but I'm hoping I'm gonna get some incredible reading done in the last couple months so let's chat about it. Hello friends how are we doing? I don't know why I'm moving around I'm just like in a good mood this morning. So we are two and a bit months from the end of the year. 2022 for me has been simultaneously long and difficult and has gone like that. But anyways we're gonna be talking today about the books that I'm hoping to still read before the end of the year and the end of year TBR tag. I believe this has started by Ariel Bissett I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure she started it. A lot of the books that I am gonna be reading I've already planned out my November 7th content I don't know what I'm gonna be reading yet because I don't know what books are gonna be chosen for the vlogs I've got coming up so I'm pretty blind as to what I'm gonna be reading but we're gonna chat about some of the books I'm hoping that I'm gonna get to. Yeah let's just start the tag shall we? I'm like I've got a skirt and I'm like I feel like I'm in like a I don't know like a stage play you know. Anyways okay first question is are there any books you started this year that you need to finish? Now I don't do this if you guys know me I very rarely like once I start a book I'm finishing it pretty much like I very rarely DNF and I very rarely like put books down for another day so the only two that I have I am currently reading in my dreams I hold a knife so I suppose I still need to finish this I'm gonna finish this today I'm about 200 pages in plot twist I'm really enjoying it the vlog for this was supposed to go up today but I haven't even finished the first book and there's two other books in the vlog so that was just wasn't gonna happen but yeah this is I'm sure many of you know about a group of friends who went to college together and one of the friends was murdered and they basically tried to figure out who murdered the friend in this book. So yeah you hear my thoughts about that not next week now the vlog is having to be pushed back to the week after so you'll see my thoughts on that soon-ish. The only other book that I have started this year and not finished is The Mirror Season by Anne-Marie Mackamaw. Now this was for a wrapped up vlog I've never done this before I've never not read the book that I unwrapped in a wrapped up vlog but it was when I was struggling emotionally uh mentally and this book is very heavy it's about two characters who are essayed at this party both of them and it's about them dealing with it and kind of their trauma and one of the the girl loses her magical gift because of the trauma that she's gone through and I think I only read maybe I don't even know like the first 50 pages and I was like I am not capable of reading this right now like I just knew I couldn't do it emotionally like I just couldn't handle it so I ended up unwrapping a different book and reading it instead. I don't think I've ever done this with a book before like put it down because I know it's not the right time I don't tend to do that. Next question is do you have an autumnal book to transition you into the end of the year? So I did a full tbr which I'll link uh start of September-ish I think and I'm doing a pretty good job of like making my way through that list and all of those like autumnal full books so I don't know if all of these were in that I'm pretty sure they were so I still really want to read The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D Jackson a lot of you have been telling me that I'm gonna love this this is a carry retelling someone told me last night there's a podcast element to this which might make it a shoo in for a while so already I'm a positive bitch I know the audiobooks great so I'm gonna read the audiobook so next week's vlog next Sunday's vlog is now I'm having to film the clip this afternoon that will figure out what books I'm gonna read for it and this is one gonna be one of the nine in contention I will read three of the nine so it is in contention to be read in that video if not I may read it in another one not sure yet but um yeah hoping to get to this still Babel was supposed to be the next book I read but I have pushed the vlog that it's in back a week so it is no longer the next book I'm reading I'm a little bit sad like I am ready to read this everyone has been giving it five stars I recently asked on Instagram Twitter and my youtube community tab what people's favorite book that they've read so far this year was and like everyone said Babel I think that was like definitely the most popular answer so I am gonna be reading this probably not next week the week after now I am very excited and like everyone's been loving it listen dark academia fantasy magic translation colonization like tearing dismantling the institutions that are built on this blood I'm excited I'm excited for I'm going to go there because I know she always goes there she's not afraid she goes there and then The Mist by Richard Osman mysteries are very autumnal to me and I'm so I'm very excited listen I love this series so much if you don't know today series about this old group of friends a retirement village who end up solving murders in real life I think I read the first one in November last year I read the second one earlier this year but I feel like I didn't love the second one as much it was still five stars but I didn't love it as much because I didn't read it in autumn like this is a November book to me always I feel like every book now now that I'm caught with a series I have to read in November next question is there a new release you're still waiting for let's get up my spreadsheet I do have a spreadsheet of all of the new releases that I am excited for oh I kind of like spooky autumnal pick I'm excited for The Glass which by Lindsay Puckett Lindsay is a author Tuba on here and this is her middle grade debut which is very exciting this is a little bit hard to get my hands on in the UK I think I'm gonna have to order it through book depository or something but I would like to read that before the end of the year oh I'm also really excited for Survive by Holly Jackson this is Holly Jackson's first book outside of the Good Girls Guide to Murder series it's more like a thriller I feel like of these friends on this trip and I think they start dying or something I know that this is told over the period of eight hours I think and you can like read it in time which I'm definitely gonna try and do that in December so those are probably the ones I'm most excited for I have a lot of like January books I'm excited for like so many books coming out in January next year but in terms of books coming out before the end of the year those are probably the ones I'm most excited for oh also I did literally this morning just receive uh the Restless Dark by Erica Waters which I think has just come out and this is pitched as Sadie meets Wilder Girls Harper 360 YA what are you doing to me? Sorry I am buzzing the cloud kiss killer is dead now a true crime podcast is hosting a contest to find his bones shut up Lucy was almost a serial killer's final victim Caroline is a true crime fan who fears her own rage Maggie is a psychology student who has a little bit too much to hide all of them are looking for answers for a new identity for a place to bury their secrets but there are more than bones hiding in the shadows sometimes the darkness inside is more frightening than anything the dead louver I do own Ghostwood Song by this author but I think this is gonna be where I start I love the cover like isn't she gorgeous look at that I love the cover yeah I just feel like this is this will be where I start the author so I would really like to read this before the end of the year as well the next question is what are three books that you want to read before the end of the year and obviously all those books that I've just told you are ones I want to read for the end of the year but I thought for this let's recognize I just released like the biggest side okay I've been doing pretty well on my series goal if you don't know one of my biggest goals pretty my big reading goal on the start of the year was to get my ongoing series down to 26 or less I think I'm currently on like 32 now I don't know if we're gonna get to 26 I don't I'm gonna be honest it might not happen right now what I want you to know is you're going to fail miserably but I would like to try and get close so I have no plans to read these three books but I want to read them somehow these are all books if I read this book I finish off a series so we have A Sum of Storms and Silence by Rosanne A Brown this is probably the one I'm least looking forward to I gave the first book four stars and it was fine but I feel like I've forgotten it and it's long like this book is over 500 pages this is a west african inspired fantasy we're in the first book the two main characters want to kill each other but only to achieve aims that are really important to them not because they actually want to kill each other and I did enjoy it it's a very vivid fantasy and so I would like to get to the second book in the series but that may be the least likely the most likely I would say if I can work up to it is Girls of Fate and Fury by Natasha Nyang yeah so Girls of Fate and Fire was is a super important book to me right it's a book I read when I was first getting back into reading then I didn't love Girls of Storm and Shadow as much and it's been a long time since I read them and I'm nervous I'm not ready to read this but I feel like I need to just finish off the series I need to like lay it to rest finish it off it's about time our main character becomes a paper girl who are girls who are forced to sleep with the king the series is about queer girls falling in love fighting against oppression it is gorgeously written I'm so excited to see what Natasha Nyang comes out with next but yes I feel like I should finish this series before the end of the year like it just needs to be laid to rest and then I've been trying to be really good at like finishing series that I start this year as well crying I'm like kind of crying um I read King of Scars a few months ago like maybe three months ago so I would like to read Wall of Wolfs I would like to read Wall of Wolfs that's like easy to say wrong before the end of the year whilst the story is still fresh in my brain because I feel like I'm good forget it so even though I didn't love King of Scars I feel like the audiobooks for these are really good I mean this is this is ridiculously 580 pages this is why I don't finish series because the last book is like 2000 pages long that is a slight exaggeration it is literally 580 it's not 2000 so I mean those three books are not the books I'm necessarily most excited to read but I do want to try and get a bit closer to finishing a few more series they would be nice next question is is there a book that you think could still shock you and become your favorite book of the year I think these are our two best bets if we're honest with ourselves the first book in this series was my second favorite book of last year and everyone has been saying this is their favorite book of the year so I think these are our two like best bets and a book could definitely become my favorite book of the year we have a few different elements here I'm happier than I was at the start of the year so I feel like I'm giving out more five stars this is my favorite time to read I think I often read a lot of my favorite books in like November October December time like I just love the coziness of reading during this time I've had quite a lot of five stars this year but I don't feel like I've had a lot of like all-time favorites like books that just astound me one of these could definitely become my favorite book I think babble is probably best placed to become my favorite book but we shall see and the final question is have you already started making reading plans for next year no here's the thing I have a lot of videos that I know are probably in January February I just haven't planned out which ones are going when I've planned out all of December which I mean December's gonna be crazy guys I'm probably gonna read like 30 books like make 10,000 videos so like I can't think beyond December right now I've planned out like my first few videos for January but they're not vlogs and I don't think I'll plan out the rest of January until January like I'm not December's I just need to get December done the past two years I have set a big reading goal every year so last year it was to read at least 50 percent authors of color this year it was to get down to 26 series and I think next year I don't want a big goal that like influences what I choose what I read I think I've been thinking about it it's a little bit obviously I'll talk about this more and I will do a goals video at the start of next year but I think my goal is just gonna be to get my TBR under 200 books and keep it there which I know sounds ridiculous like 200 books but I really want it to be in the hundreds I don't want it to be in the 200s and I'm currently like 216 so you may think that's not that difficult but Christmas and my birthday in January are like times when I really stock up on books I don't buy a ton of books throughout the year like I try to be very money careful and not spend like loads of money on books so I do get in my family get me a lot of books for this Christmas and January and that's always been the time I kind of stock up and then like read through them so it's going to get a lot more towards the end of the year and start off next year so I think that's going to be my main goal for next year it's not going to be like about what I read more to just read a lot it's my goal next year I'm not thinking about January yet really let's just get through December I'm so excited for all the videos I've got coming the rest of this year like some of my favorite videos I'm feeling so great about the videos I'm making I hope it's showing that I just like lifted up my belt I was like whoa you know I struggled at the start of this year mentally and I felt stuck in a rut and I hope it's showing that I'm now so much more happy and fulfilled and trying to stretch myself and trying to do lots of fun videos so there we have it that is my end of year TBR I hope you enjoyed this video let me know what some of your reading plans are for the rest of this year any books you're wanting to read any books you think could become your favorite books of the year I would love to know thank you guys so much for watching as always and I'll see you very soon in the video bye


Well before I get started. So how many marketers do I have in here? Good. How many IT? Somewhere in between. Let's see like a couple. Okay. Cool. I think you'll all get something out of this one. I am gonna go ahead and get started since we only have right at three. So first I'm gonna introduce you to me. I'm Shelly Hutchins. I'm Director of Client Services at Media Current. I've spent about 12 years pretty well split between the marketing and client services side of the house and I want to tell you a few things about me because as we go through this presentation it's gonna make a lot of sense. So the first thing you should know is that I am a problem solver by nature. So I get really excited about weaving through the web of things and coming out the other side with something that makes a lot of sense. So those escape rooms? Yeah, completely my bag. My necklaces all get tangled up in the bottom of my jewelry box and I kind of get a little excited about it. It's just who I am. Second, I'm a data junkie. So I think data tells the story. Some of my favorite podcasts are Science Versus and Surprisingly Awesome. I think it's now called Every Little Thing. I'm also a podcast junkie in case you couldn't tell. But because of those two things I ask why a lot, which is kind of what led me to this talk today. And I do work for Media Current as I said. And so our goal is to answer that why that I talked about by building the right digital solution for that job. So this means we work with you from the beginning of your project to define those challenges and then where we work with Drupal and those other systems and technologies to give you and your team what you need to make those goals, right? So we don't say that we build websites. We build highly complex digital platforms that drive those results. And again, we ask why a lot. So now we're going to talk about buzzwords. So look at these buzzwords. They all tend to mean something, but what do they really mean? This is what we're going to talk about today. So we're going to talk about a few of these popular, often used words in digital and marketing and business. We hear them and what happens inevitably, right?  Let's do it. Nobody ever says, wait, what does that mean? What does that really mean? Right? So that's what we're going to talk about a little bit today. So take a look at the word cloud. How many of you have used one of these words this week? How many of you use one of these today? Right? Right. So for the rest of our time, I'm going to cover the four most common ones that I hear and like to talk about. And then if we have time, we're going to talk about a few of the ones that maybe keep you guys up at night. We can wrap it fire a little bit and go back and forth and see what comes out. And as you'll notice, some of these I'm going to cover because they have some real meaning behind them. And some of them we're not going to talk about because seamless is something that we all say. And I think that we pretty. Oh, and again, so I'll be around all week. So I want to remind you that if I don't cover one of these today, we can talk about it later. I'll be at our booth. I'll be around and you can always find me on LinkedIn. So the first word, I get probably 50 emails a day that have digital transformation in the title. Any of you guys write lots of that. So we're going to start with a little Q&A. Somebody tell me what digital transformation means. Anybody? You guys don't want to play today. Okay. It's okay. So here's the definition that you find on the Internet. I'm going to read it for you just so it can sink in really good. The profound and accelerating transformation of business activities, processes, competencies, and models to fully leverage the changes and opportunities of digital technologies and their impact on society in a strategic and prioritized way. Can we move on? We good? Right. But that's not how people use it. Right. I've heard digital transformation used to talk about augmented reality, virtual reality, to talk about the importance of a remote workforce and keeping them connected. And I've even used it myself to talk about how large enterprises can effectively use their inbound marketing tactics. But in practice, digital transformation really tends to be an umbrella term that means something different for every organization. And this is the key here. Going through a full transformation impacts your entire digital library, right? So your websites, microsites, mobile devices, if you've got a learning management system, all the places where you collect data, your social media, e-commerce, intranets. It's an umbrella term, but you want to be using technology to make a change. So while it's true that each of these things can be a driver for your digital transformation, it's just really important that you think through the details of what transformation means to you. So when we're talking about this transformation, we're talking about a shift in thinking, starting with that senior leadership, right, a full culture shift. So you need to take a hard look at your strategy, at your KPIs, for the upcoming year, for more than that, to understand what the core goal is of your transformation initiative. Is it improving culture because you have an international organization and you need them better connected via your intranet? Is it implementing systems that slow down on these manual processes? Is it creating a new website that more closely aligns with your buyer's journey? So revisit those goals and talk about your technology. And once you get there, you're going to find ways to improve your operations, your branding, and ultimately your revenue. And then you're going to be able to find a roadmap that makes sense. And digital transformation isn't this thing that we all want to happen some day, somehow, but it starts to become something that's attainable. In order to really achieve this, though, you have to be forward-thinking. You have to be thinking six months, two years, even further. And just continue to ask those questions. Ask why, right? I told you I like to ask why. And ask what's next so that why keeps you grounded in the now and that what's next keeps you grounded in the future and continuing to make sure that you're thinking about those things in your industry for yourself, for your competitors, and really focused on what that transformation is. And when you're thinking about what's next, that's where the transformation for you starts to happen. And when you hear digital, it's very easy to consider digital transformation as a technology challenge, right? But in real practice, it's our users' shift in behavior. We're living in an age where we're talking about chatbots, a reality to improve your user experience. And virtual reality is becoming a part of daily lives, right? We're talking about these future things. And those are really cool things, but don't buy into the hype. Understand the needs of your users and use technology to solve that problem. So here's a great example. The company that I used to work for was an international supply chain finance company. Our targets were CFOs of companies, $2 billion more in revenue. Virtual reality, probably not the right thing for them. But maybe I'm a company that sells a new technology, a new vehicle, let's say, a new driving experience. If I can't bring them all to the car, perhaps virtual reality is the perfect way to start to transfer my business there, right? So don't just buy into the technology because it sounds really cool. Really understand your buyers and understanding what technology is going to help them make the right decisions. So we're going to take digital transformation from a buzzword to something we can get behind. Again, it's a shift in mindset. It's not just a technical shift. It's a shift in your users' behavior. It's focused on users, data, and forward thinking. So unlike Bigfoot, it is real, and we can debate that later if you want. But the takeaway is that it's real. It's needed, but it's different for every organization. So at Media Current, we want to ask you why. We want our strategy team to work with you to ask what's next. And for our own organization, we do the same thing. We're asking those questions. We survey our customers. We want to hear what we're doing well, what we're doing not so well so that we can get better. And we can use the right technology for the job. That's what digital transformation at the end of the day really means. So the next one, digital ecosystem. Anybody? So here is the general accepted definition. An interdependent group of enterprises, people, and or things that share standardized digital platforms for a mutually beneficial purpose, such as commercial gain, invasion, common interest. But when you hear the word ecosystem, you probably think of a visual like this from elementary school, right? This illustrates how every living thing exists because of every other living thing, right? So you've got plankton and fish, and they go up to the smaller animals. And ultimately to humans, and we all exist because of the other. So if we apply this to a digital ecosystem, we're saying that if you have standalone systems, you're operating in silos, you're just not maximizing your investment. It's not enough to understand that connections need to exist, right? Like the digital, like the ecosystem that we just saw. It's important that the right connections exist. So that they're feeding the necessary information to each other. What you see here is an example of a digital ecosystem from one of our customers. As you see, every single system isn't 100% integrated with the others, right? That doesn't make sense for them. But the right connections are made so that their marketing automation system can work to provide personalization. Another buzzword, we'll talk about that in a minute. And then their marketing automation system is feeding back to their.com. And they're able to work to even personalize further, to give them the right information, the right learning that they need. And I won't turn left here, but marketing automation and data management is something I get really excited about too. So something else we can discuss. So all of that said, the important part about digital ecosystem is that what we're talking about are making connections between your technologies. So this earplugging is not a strategy, right? You have to be focused on communicating outside of your silo. Marketing should work with delivery, to work with internal IT. At one of my previous companies, here's another example. So I was in charge of our.com and our marketing automation. Our IT system, our IT team rather, was in charge of our internet, which was a struggling SharePoint site. And then our product team was working to build our products via Ruby on Rails, with a team in India and here working together pretty much 24 hours to develop our technology. But we were all operating pretty separately. I was talking to, ironically, someone at Media Current about a Drupal migration. Our product team was working on implementing some gear technology to help with their project management. And then our IT team, all the while by themselves, were working and had rolled out a brand new internet, a new SharePoint site. So that didn't work for us, right? We had already established that it didn't work for many teams. But because we weren't communicating, no one was on the same page of that. And we got another SharePoint site that very quickly went the way of the other. But had we communicated, we may have been able to avoid those licensing fees and found the right integrations and found an open source solution for us that would have worked for all levels. So we're gonna sum it up, it's relevant, right? Ecosystems rely on connections, not just content. Re-imagine your properties as a system that shares data and functionality. And things like Drupal 8's API-first technology makes that possible for you. Makes you able to think of all of the various ways and it doesn't limit you in ways that perhaps we were before. So we're going to move on. Next one, agile. How many of you guys say agile? Work agile? Every single day. So what does it mean? Able to move quickly, easily? Relating or denoting to a method of project management, right? This is probably the definition we know. So I'm gonna go through a couple of things here and this is based on some recent experiences that I've heard or seen in several different instances. So what agile doesn't mean? It doesn't mean you don't need a plan, right? It also doesn't mean we'll figure out that really complex functionality later.  There should be. And this is the one that I get, I wasn't going to include in first, but over the past, I would say, six, eight months, I hear agile used a lot in discussion. But I think a lot of people get a little confused about what it actually means. So the reason agile's beneficial is because it allows you to iterate a lot. It allows you to run small tests, learn from them, and then make better decisions on the next test that you're going to run and the next sprint you're going to go through. Like I said before, I spent a lot of time on the marketing side of the house. And I think of agile, agile marketing is also something we're using a lot. And what it means, again, is that I can run a small campaign. I can learn the success of that, my messaging, who I'm sending it to, the time of day, whatever it is, what personalized content I'm serving up. You know, all of those things I can test on small levels, learn from them and continue to adjust. So I can improve my speed, predictability, and then I can also adapt. So I'm accomplishing things, but along the way, I'm able to run these small additional tests to make me better. I still know that I want to deliver either so many campaigns, so many pieces of content. I'm still focused on them, still running that way. But then I can maybe try something that's a little on left field and I can test. So I can test, learn, and improve. I can learn faster, I can win quickly, and I can fail quickly. And then I can continue to problem solve. I can always find a way to be better from a problem solving standpoint. So this graphic over here is an example of a sprint cycle at Media Current. But again, you can apply this to a lot of different places. Agile marketing is one of the words that I hear a lot now. The concept, though, is that you've got a plan. You're still running on the strong things that you know you want to do. But these smaller cycles allow you to really learn and grow and change and try things you might not normally do if they're going to be a three month really expensive test. So Agile helps you continuously learn. Don't use Agile as a crutch to avoid those hard planning sessions. Focus on quick wins and leveraging successes to fuel your team. So when you say Agile, you mean let's move quickly, but you don't mean let's move in 12 different directions at once. You still want to have that roadmap in the plan you're following. So last word I'm going to cover right now. Personalization, I think we all know what this is, right? Design or tailor to meet an individual's needs or specifications. Meeting their needs more effectively, efficiently. Increasing customer satisfaction, the likelihood of repeat visits. This step that I'm about to show you, I think I've used in just about every presentation I've given in the past year because it made such an impact on me. Even some of our teams using it now because they get really excited about it too. By 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationship with you without ever talking to a person. 85%, that's huge. That means they're going to use the web, your app, or even text messaging to interact with you never speaking to a person. Delta does this really well now via Twitter, right? You can get an answer on Twitter much quicker if you ever called anyone at the company. Because they've responded to the fact that that's how people interact with them. So those customer preferences and behaviors have changed and those buying journeys are so self-directed and digitally led now. Which means that more than ever, it's important that these types of marketing for the customer facing and revenue generating functions. More than that, it's important that large companies can harness this to have that one-on-one digital conversation with their customer at scale. Again, Delta is a great example, they're starting to do it right. So this buzzword, like the others we covered, is not hype. It is very much though a Rome wasn't built in a day scenario. When you understand what it means, you've still got to define what personalization means for your organization. So you've got to start by defining your why. So define what your goal is. For one of our clients, they're designed for travel and tourism. Their goal is to serve up more content to you based on the places you've said you want to go or the places that you've checked out that you want to visit. It could be conversions for e-commerce, more relevant purchases like Amazon does for us, but you want to define what that why is. That helps you understand how to personalize. It doesn't mean that every piece of your site should be personalized. And I do want to say personalization, I suppose, well, I suppose personalization is, you know, hi Shelly, how are you today? How's the media current? And it's a funny story because when I first started using marketing automation, that's what they were saying. We offer personalization. You can customize your emails with your client's name and their company. And while that's true, we've evolved so much further than that, right? So you want to be defining the what next. It's about the content that you're giving them. It's about the messaging that you're giving them. It's about the context that you're using to communicate with them. So you want to define what that what is. And then you get to what the how is. So the why and what move you down to choosing the right technologies, the right interactions. So in some cases, you might have personalization built into your marketing automation system or another piece of your technology stack. But if not, you're going to want to work to something that meets your needs. This is something that I tell clients a lot. You don't buy a Maserati or a Ferrari to drive it 15 miles an hour, right? That'll be no fun, right? You buy a fast car because you want it to go. So do the same thing with your technology. Don't go out and buy the most expensive technology with all of the bells and whistles because it's a shiny new toy, right? Pick the right technology that serves you. If you need something really complex, then choose that tool. But also go out there and look for other pieces of technology that potentially still accomplish what you need without breaking your bank. Because you are going to get started. Again, it's a long process. We're talking about agile and we're talking about personalization. You're going to want to test a lot along the way and iterate and make changes until you find the right balance that works for you. So bottom line, the why wins again. You're asking why you want to build the right team and the hype is real, personalization works. It does work. You've got to learn how it works for your audience, but it works. So, I have, so for these last few minutes I want to try something. You can ask a question, but if there's a buzz word that bugs you, we can do a little bit of rapid fire Q&A, can give you my thoughts there. And you can give me yours. But let's think about the ones that really do mean something. So we don't need to talk about synergy, right? Or low hanging fruit, or let's see, let me pick out some others. Close the loop, right? We know what those things mean. But if there's really one you want to get to the bottom of, let's chat. And I'm happy to answer some more questions with the time we've got left. I'm the channel? Omni-channels when I hear a lot and I left it out because I was sure I would have time. To me, omni-channel means understanding all the channels that are available to you much like we're talking about your ecosystem, right? Understanding all of those possible channels and acting on the right ones for you. So omni-channel, when you hear it, companies that are saying they want to be omni-channel to me are companies that are saying we want to be globally recognized leaders in every space possible for our vertical. And that's great, but really it's about understanding you're focused on every channel that your users are interacting in. That's kind of my take on omni-channel. We could talk more, I think there's more to it than that, but basically when we say it, that's what we mean whether or not that's actually the truth. Anybody else? Questions? Anything I didn't cover? Anybody disagree? Big data. Big data. Like I said before, I love data. So we're collecting and I think I heard it described this way the other day. We're pretty much leaving tiny little fingerprints all over the web. And people like me when I was a marketer got really excited about that because I could know whatever I wanted to and talk to you in whatever way. But the reality is once you get into that, finding a way to get all that data in one place and get it synthesized together where it actually makes sense.  That's what people are saying when they say big data, right? It's what technology can I find? And to be honest, you know, I've heard of Hadoop, but I don't know all of the details, but I know that we're all trying to solve that same problem because we're trying to find the right tool to get all of those little pieces into one system so that we can visualize it better. Data visualization is another one, right? We're always looking for ways to see all of the information that we've got. And there are some softwares out there that try, but I think there's probably still a magic bullet that we haven't gone. Well, I'll be around if we want to chat any more about buzzwords or you know, data management or podcasts. Thank you guys.


All right. We are all here. Welcome back from the break, everyone. We hope you had a good, interesting discussion and exchanges in your session. So for this feedback plenary, we will pass the word back to Ausa. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, equally, I hope you've all had very good sessions. I was cruising between them and I heard some very important dialogue in all of them. We now move on to the last but very important part of our seminar. Its presenter will now give us a very short report, just the essence of the dialogue, maximum three minutes from all the workshop.  So I'm going to give the work first to Daphne Tepper, director of Uni Europa, who will speak on behalf of the group on working conditions. Thank you very much. Hello everyone. We had indeed a very good discussion, I believe, very dense and sometimes intense discussion and rightly so about working conditions of artists and cultural professionals across Europe. We heard from many different perspectives. We first had a very nice video recordings of artists, a dancer, a choreographer, a dramaturg, a wardrobe manager and an actor from different European countries who gave us an insight about their life as professionals in the sector, highlighting what their challenges, but also some of, of course, the many positive aspects of working in the sector. And they also told us about what it was to go through the current crisis in their professional lives, and therefore we heard about, of course, the uncertainty, the insecurities, the importance of contracts and protection and social securities, the differences from countries to countries that appeared for the different people. So it was a very nice introduction with real voices of people in the theaters across Europe and going through this crisis. After that we had a round table with colleagues who are here from ITM, from the independent performing arts organization, from FIA, Perl and from the commission, from DG Education and Culture, in order to try to draw the picture about the working conditions, what are the specific features and what are the key challenges today, yesterday, tomorrow and what should be urgently worked on. And of course, on the table where the issues of the discontinuities of careers in our sectors of the increasingly freelance workforce, the importance of contract, as I said, the sometimes very low pay situation for many people, the very precarious safety net, the precarity of the careers and the impact this has on the art, on the diversity in the art and in the workforce, and also on the livelihood of many people. Unfortunately more and more people in the sector, especially in the current crisis. And then we had a third round table where we had the chance to have with us two representatives of the European Parliament and two representatives of member states towards the EU, where we discussed several initiatives that are actually in the pipelines in the different institutions on the topic of working conditions of artists and cultural professionals. And especially we discussed suggestions, a proposal that was made in a resolution of the European Parliament on cultural recovery adopted in September, to adopt a European framework on the working conditions on actors and so there was a discussion on what would that cover. And of course that led us to think and debate the competencies you know what can the EU actually do in this field which is mainly member states competence. But then also what about social rights and the social model that the EU is promoting and so very interesting discussions. I think was a great recognition of the urgency of acting in order to support the people now in the field that are going through very dark times. But also the fact that those the precarity and was always there and this is also an opportunity to actually look long term and address issues that could be changed and worked on in order to offer more security and a better framework in the future. So thank you Daphne you you have gone well over your three minutes sorry for the short time but we are pressed for time and we really want to give people opportunity to ask questions. So next up from group to I invite Christoph lebski from the Salzburg University to speak on behalf of the co create group. You are muted. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. I try to be very brief, which is not easy because it was a very dense discussion that covered many aspects. It was kind of journey from some historic perspectives on the need of the co creation and cooperation of European universities to the actual situation to some future projects. Historic perspective means that we had in the panel speakers actually explicitly from Eastern and Western Europe from Poland, Budapest and the Netherlands and from an offer of course, the moderator. And so they somehow first described somehow how and how they first developed this kind of neat how they got to know about this about European cooperation. And it was this moment for the Eastern European colleagues from a post socialist situation, having this kind of alienation experience, when they first met Western colleagues, and the difficulty to develop really equal partnerships. And that the motivation for all of them was quite clear that this is an issue. Everybody, all of them wanted to develop. Actually, it was clear that this has European cooperation has to be based on the same set of European value values, the autonomy of universities and so on. And how crucial in this context it is really experiencing different cultural contexts, or in on the on the level of the students of students collaboration, how important it is in the work couple of examples, experiencing each other, and especially, of course, regarding the situation that was kind of highlighted that we have currently in the university for theater and film in Budapest, where actually and now coming to the describing the situation we are actually in. So, where there is a kind of model developed, which is called the Free Republic of learning, where the students kind of in an extracurricular structure developed their own ways of working together of cooperation and of transdisciplinary work. So we can somehow be expanded on the international field of collaboration so there were other examples of cooperation works, like the play to work platform European theater academies, which was founded a couple of years ago, and where eight European students actually work together and create collaboration projects where each Academy is participating in each of the projects that the schools are developing. And on to the models or to the proposals that were brought up in the in the discussion. So, there was one proposal to establish a kind of European production house for young professionals, which is addressed specifically for postgraduate students in order to bridge the gap between the end of the of the studies and the beginning of the professional career, because there is the observation that now students or graduates kind of quickly get absorbed in the national institutions of the respective countries, where as such an European production house for press postgraduate for young experience would be the possibility to open up a space to continue the European collaboration work, which they experienced in their studies. And it leads to an to an aspect that was quite intensively discussed that there is now international cooperation on a project base. There is of course, international exchange on the base of the Erasmus program, but there is a lack of structural of the implementation kind of collaboration in the curriculum. This is for all partners, a kind of a big issue and it is kind is addressed kind to the to the need for a specific European funding for this kind of structural implementation because on the one hand, as I pointed out Erasmus is too much for individual exchange and creative Europe is covering such a big field that the specific kind of cooperation is not addressed. I'm going to have to stop you there. Sorry, you've gone over your time as well and we need to move on to the third contributor, but before she starts, I want to ask you all to start thinking about potential questions, you would like to post to all the panelists and all the speakers here, and you can do so in the Q&A. So you can already start thinking. But last but not least, I give the word to Julia Dina has a has that correct. Who is the vice president of asset here in Germany who will speak on behalf of the access and diversity group. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah, so I would try to sum up we also had a very emotional sometimes discussion about the theme of accessibility and diversity. And we had a guest from different countries starting with event hardly from South Africa would present an outer perspective on the European culture and theater. And so she she pointed out from the beginning that everything we are talking about today is not the one size fits all so when we start talking about what can we do for access and more diversity. They won't be one solution as the landscape and the different companies and artists in their size and their constructions are so different on the one hand, and then the situation in every country as well is different as well. And at the same time, it was a common sense that one proposal and one very important need for the artists and the theater makers is to be supported in networking so communication and exchanges, trainings, handing on first experiences sharing best practice is a very important thing to to work against the getting bigger frustration and feeling that it is taking so much time for taking first steps that they're still the same people talking and sitting in this places that this was another point and another claim that is very important to think about that it's not enough to to make possible some projects and include and open up minorities and making them minorities but minorities by pointing out that you are doing it so it's more like a symbolic thing that all these projects don't lead anywhere so that the important thing is to think about privileges and to sharing power or giving away power. And this is to this is what event on partners pointed out, you need to go outside in the street you need to make past and to open your access and to not wait for people to come but to go into the rural areas go into the spaces and create with the people not thinking that you're the one knowing the answers and knowing what is art and how it has to be done, but also rethinking our whole concept of who is the artist who is the audience what can we can we learn from each other and truly make an authentic encounter of people in the audience people on stage and people working in the theater. So these were some some of the things we had discussed, and, of course, theater is always testing for new new ways of societies and new ways of communities. And so the genuine interest is in interaction with the audiences and not all processes have to take on stage, but there's the question of representation so there was the still is the question who can tell which story and what stories are told at all which stories make it to the theater and which people come here and there we started thinking about the educational systems in the countries that you should also already in the school system starts telling different stories and making access possible for all children coming from everywhere. And these children should see people and stories on stage that actually they can identify with. So there's a lot to do. And I hear that and there's a lot of subjects already on the table thank you all reporters. I know it's a hard job to try to sum up on a two hour discussion with very many viewpoints so thank you all for your good overview. Now good people we move on to the last part we have approximately 23 minutes left for us to enable those that have been patiently listening to all of us this morning to ask questions, or make comments, or even better send suggestions of ideas of next steps. Because that is really what I think is probably highest on our minds how can we further the conversations and take some actual concrete steps. So the good forum team will be feeding me via a Google Doc. Any questions that are being posed I don't see many questions coming in the Q&A. Is there nobody that has any pressing things on his or her mind. I don't believe it after all these important dialogue so I'm sure something is coming our way. But in the meantime, I wanted to ask then we have something coming here. Just a second. So Ulrike Könner puts this down the European production house sounds a great idea, but it should be a satellite system in different countries and reflect the hybrid systems of artistic productions. So here's a comment that we have regarding the European production house. And then we have a question from the live stream. Not posed to anyone in particular. So I guess whoever one of you that wants to take this question to us, put your hand up and I'll give you the word. The question is, what does the future look like for British actors and other theater professionals in the EU. Will we lose access to opportunities, even if we speak other European languages. Who wants to take this question. Anybody. Dear ball, we have dear ball Murphy, go ahead. Thank you as I yes durable Murphy from the International Federation of Actors and since it was actors who were specifically mentioned I thought I would answer I can only say that the acting community in Europe, and with the support I might add of our employer counterparts. We have issued several calls to policymakers to please ensure that whatever the outcome that the sector can continue to have the mobility that it thrives on. And I think it would be a terrible shame. If actors were to lose opportunities in both directions to the UK and from the UK and I can really only echo. The statement already made an ask for consideration of the sector and the devastating impact that Brexit in particular would have on it. Thank you for that and I echo that on behalf of the networks I can say that all the European networks have no intention of cutting ties with any of their UK professionals whatever sector they come from. And I believe we will find a way to keep on working with our colleagues in the United Kingdom. I feel certain of that. We have lots of things coming in good people so it's getting exciting. In the live stream. We have a comment. It is time for sanctions on a national European level to ensure that cultural institutions actually reflect the diversity of the audiences and communities in which they're based. That is an interesting provocation to say the least. What do you think, should there be sanctions, Stefan, you've raised your hand. I just wanted to say that we've been doing another way around I never thought about sanctions but maybe it's an interesting idea. We thought about including diversity in funding as a criteria in funding programs might be the, let's say the positive way of sanctions. Certainly, certainly, anybody else that wants to respond to this sanction idea. If not, we move on to the next one from the live stream also we have really active people on the live stream which is great. It would be good if we could know how many people are actually there taking part. We are the live stream, but it's a short and simple question. Are we listening to children and young people. Anybody from us that wants to respond to this. Is Yvette still there? What about Louise? You want to take the ball, Louise? Oh, Yvette is there. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean child participation has been very much one of our focuses over the last couple of years and we are. There have been so many excellent projects which have allowed children to participate in the making of those projects and now we're looking at how we can engage children in the policymaking decisions and in the, in the sort of the way events are curated for example. I think that as a teacher certainly paying a lot of attention to that as an area. And I think that the next period that we're moving into now is it's going to be one of our main focus areas. And we are building a collection of best practices from across the globe to kind of use as a resource. But I think we have to, that's some, you know, and talking about diversity and inclusion, that's where it has to start. Absolutely. And it's good to hear that you are really putting this in focus, but the question is perhaps also, is it actually happening in reality on the national level, but I assume that is very diverse, depending on countries. Stefan, you also want to respond. Yeah, I think if we're talking about the theaters for young audiences. It is there in a to listen to children, most of the theaters. My question would be, how can we transfer the example of the theater for young audiences to the adult theaters. How can the adult theaters better listen to their audiences because sometimes a public theater does not know for who they are paying. So I think the best practice example of theater for young audiences could be transferred to the to the adult theaters and that might be a very interesting discussion. Thank you so much. We have to move on. There's a lot of questions coming my way. So from the zoom room. Follow ask. I would like to remind us all that the community of creative critics also needs to be represented. How can we editors of theater magazines contribute to the renaissance of European theater as as there are people. So, sorry, I don't get this last thing as, as, as a group of people I imagine it as theater of people. So, can we make sure to invite the critics to our zoom rooms. I think yes. Right. I agree with this we should just take this as a lesson if we didn't do it this time we certainly should do it next time. Absolutely. An important group for us, working in the performing arts. That's from the live stream stream. I think it is so important what Julia said about going out into places for the first time, and being bringing creative experiences to new audiences. Can we be advocacy for a larger scale, more experienced events. Can we link up as a sector to help each other create the widest possible reach. Anybody that wants to take this question on board. How can we help each other to get the widest possible Stefan I see your hand up anybody that wants to take it from Stefan because he's already come in quite often. Anybody. Okay, go ahead. But this was one point in the in the diversity and access group which was very crucial. Say, we have to be able to travel. This is also made my EU program of course to travel not only to the areas that are normally known but to non traditional spaces or to rural areas. I think that could be a real program. International groups go to rural areas and to a basis which are not normally supported by by by theaters and guest performances and festivals. Yeah, this this particular point is coming more and more on the agenda of it and I can tell you that and it's something that we will be paying attention to. We can move on as we are pressed for time. We have an anonymous comment from the zoom room. We spoke of all the challenges this year has brought with it this year has brought a lot of challenges. Can we think and reflect on any of the positive things this pandemic has brought with it. And next we have. Yeah, actually it's a very interesting question and we have been serving our membership about more or less the same question and it's still that we still need to process all the answers but they're like incredible number of very interesting ideas about what is actually happening in this whole situation. And some of them are as such so first of all I think many of our members have seen a huge solidarity in the sector which has never been shown before. There is like very interesting equalization happens when institutions could sit with artists at the same table and discuss challenges all together understanding the interdependencies between each other. And there's also positive that funders maybe learned something about and policymakers learned more about the situation of artists. It's obviously and we have been repeating it all the time in our session about working conditions that it's a momentum actually to talk about the precarious conditions which have been there ready for ages not only with COVID. And then another interesting, of course, there was also a moment to rethink a lot of practices to reach out to other sectors to think about more ecological sustainable recovery and the future. And I think in many places funders also showed a great flexibility. They allowed their beneficiaries to basically take the existing grant and adapt it to the situation tailor it to the existing projects and processes. In relation to what they can actually do and what they would like to do in these times. And I think that these practices of funders being flexible could be very much brought to the future. Because if this is allowed, I think a lot of things and inclusivity and working conditions. All these factors will also would improve in the sector. You wanted to respond. Yes, I just want to add that this is now the time I guess I mean where we really get awareness for the artists and that also politicians now do not only speak with the funding institutions and just put their money in front of the houses in front of the doors of the houses so to say sorry if I'm a little bit. So it's not confrontative but this is what has happened until now. So that the money just went to the institutions as it was regular and now it is like that the view is much more open so now also the politicians what is happening after the after the doors of the of the institutions and what is going on then with a with a public money which is invested in all of these institutions and organizations and festivals and the and so on and so on. And also we got much more public awareness so I'm for example more or less constantly in radio on radio on TV. Media is really interested what's going on so it's now really the time and the possibility that all parts are now discussing and really aware that the entire system needs to be renovated. And that it cannot be go on as it as it has happened now for 30 or 40 years so that we really have to look into all of the contracting systems into all of the employment systems in all of the security systems and so on. And it's quite a lot to me but so far it's not possible anymore to close the ice. If we want to have a vital and vibrant and contemporary art scene and we really and all of the stakeholders really have to look on the conditions and have to see what are now the challenges that also in future, we will have a very vital and vibrant performing art scene. Thank you very much for this order I agree the tension towards the situation of the independent artist has certainly been wrong and we need to keep hammering on that for sure together. It's a totally different very practical question coming from the zoom room. Claire how else is asking, when is the new application for creative Europe going to be launched. And we know it's coming in 2021 but Regina wants to respond to this or not. No okay. Well, Barbara, you want to respond. Yeah, go ahead. Yes, well, we just received the good news yesterday that that there is a compromise proposal between the Member States and the parliament on the creative Europe budget and it has been increased. But the problem is now we still need the endorsement of that so there's still a few hurdles to take. We are counting. I mean we're counting on the fact that has been approved now in part at least. So we're optimistic that the timetable that as I mentioned that hopefully will launch early part of 2021. Can we say that. No we cannot say anything at the moment because yeah the budget is not yet approved you know I know I know but you know we are on our way right. Of course, let's stay optimistic it looks good. Good, good, good, good, good. I have another question here in the top and my iPod went off. Sorry for that. From the live stream. I am a national coordinator of a committee of the Ministry of Education in Italy. What is the importance of the music. Do you think it's important to have a European point of view about education and performing arts. I think it's safely to say that that is what we've been discussing this morning that it is important to have a European point of view so I'm going to take the opportunity and say yes on behalf of all of us. However we might differ on what is the importance and what to come first. And then we have a final question and we only have a few minutes left. And that is also from the live stream. Does any country think about open open call for theatrical science paper works. The next question is about the sort of more academic research science parts of theater. Is there, is there somebody that would like to respond to this final question that we have. For me again. Yes. From our national perspectives and the European Association of Independent Performing Arts gathers all of these national perspectives. It is much more about to open in general the funding structures and to allow every kind of artistic reflection if it is an artistic production if it is a research if it is theoretical approach or whatever. If it is digital if it is live whatever so this is one of the main challenges I guess and before the near future to reformulate the entire funding structures national funding structures and keep it as open as possible. And I would like to add to that that this is also an opportunity this question for those theater makers that are here in the room to think about the opportunities that they have as theater makers to apply for horizon funding programs and sort of more the academic site of the European grant system. And we certainly are not excluded from that part of the system and theater makers could be thinking much more towards those funds, as well as the ones that we may be most of us know better. Well, I think we are going to finish well on time, dear people. This has been a good round. Thank you very much. I have a few important things to say to you. Before we finalize. And that is that this is not at all finished, you can actually continue in the fun places in the dressed in theater, because there are these networking rooms available to all of you that feel like talking more and feel like talking, and you can now go back to the auditorium website and find your way if you want to talk about working conditions, you go to the ricking loft. If you want to talk about co creation and international collaboration and education, you go to the stage. And if you want to talk about accessibility and diversity, you go to the bar. That's a good one. So ricking loft states and the bar. I thank you on behalf of myself on behalf of all the speakers, but I am going to give the word back to Ian and Gina, who are going to tell us about the afternoon sessions. Thank you very much. Thank you. At this point, we want to thank actually everybody for their attention during this very intense, dense and exciting morning of the European theater forum 2020 European performing arts in focus. We will now close the live stream for today. And we meet back tomorrow at nine o'clock for a day.


I meant to show you this picture in the last one. So this is a nice color. Sometimes it's handy, like my little drawings and my little analogies, who will ever forget this? But sometimes it's handy to actually have the more professional visual. And here you can see my primary structure is just my little amino acids. Fold those puppies on each other and then you're going to have secondary structure. Take those secondary structures and fold the holy live and tar out of those guys and you're going to have tertiary structure and then stick a couple of them together and you're going to have quaternary structure. That's actually a Wikipedia image, which means it's totally, never mind, I'm not going to say anything about that on YouTube. Okay, so here we are with your structure, you're good. Now let's look at the three groups of proteins that we're going to build using these different structures. Are you ready? I've already hinted away at one of them. Enzymes. Enzymes are protein machines and they actually catalyze. That's the word catalyze chemical reactions. RXN is windy language for reaction. I think that's a legal abbreviation, too. So enzymes catalyze chemical reactions. So a protein has a shape. A molecule comes in and binds to that protein and a chemical reaction takes place because it bound to the enzyme. Enzymes often are required for chemical reactions to take place in living systems and that's because, like, if you think about it, how unbelievable is it that we can be a walking and working chemical reaction? If you've taken chemistry or you've done rigs by a one, then I've probably blown up the gummy bear for you. One time I blew up a gummy bear and I started a fire. I shouldn't say that on YouTube either. Never mind, I didn't. And I knew exactly where the fire extinguisher was. Anyway, why was I talking about that? Because there's lots of energy in chemical reactions and really the chemical reactions that are life, like we have to control those things or else we'll, like, blow stuff up. Let's not do that. Enzymes help make the chemical reactions happen. Chemical reactions that otherwise would take a really long time to happen on their own. We make them happen fast. How does it do it? The enzyme changes shape. When it changes shape, it causes the chemical reaction to take place. That's not all. We're going to be looking at enzymes. Enzymes are going to help us understand how a whole bunch of the chemistry happens. Here's another one, man. Receptors. Ralph, who is my hero in the land of physiology? Ralph has a shirt somewhere that says, receptors, because really if you're, like, taking a test and you are not positive with the answer is, the answer might very well be receptors because receptors are why a whole lot of things happen in your body. Let's draw a picture of receptor. Guess what it's made out of? Protein. It's protein molecule that's usually found in the cell membrane. I don't know why I colored that puppy in. And there's all sorts of them found in the cell membrane, and they all have different shapes, and they all have different functions. Look at all those different shapes that I'm making. Just for the fun of it. Can you see it? That's my Pac-Man receptor. So each of these receptors, like, will, they're embedded in the cell membrane. So they're different than enzymes, but sometimes the difference is a little bit, really? But they connect to a certain shaped molecule. And that molecule, sometimes it's a hormone, sometimes it's a neurotransmitter, sometimes it's a drug. That molecule, that chemical, will come in and bind to the receptor and when it connects to the receptor, it causes a change in the shape of the receptor, and that actually can stimulate something, some kind of chemical reaction, chemical cascade that causes something to happen. Do something. Seriously, like, that's really how it works. So then here comes a different molecule that binds with this one. Look at that molecule, totally different, it causes a different something to happen. And it's busy, oh! It's so cool, because we're going to get to see, like, ooh, what does this molecule cause to happen? What is this, like, what is that chemical cascade that's happening? We get to figure those things out. It's really exciting. The receptor is usually a protein.  You can think about, like, that cell isn't going to be doing anything. That cell is not going to be affected by this, whatever that molecule is, whether it's a hormone or a neurotransmitter or a drug. That cell will not be affected because it's lacking the proper receptor. Receptors are an important molecule that we will be talking about a lot in this class. Are we finished? We've got one more, transporters, another transporters. You can, there's probably gray in all of these, which I think is kind of interesting, but a transporter is also found in a cell membrane, and it's a protein that somehow allows stuff in and out of the cell. It allows molecules. A receptor binds to a molecule and then causes something to happen. A transporter will actually bring molecules in. I often make my transporters look something like this, and then you can imagine that there's this little transporter sitting in your cell membrane, and when the molecule that it's going to move comes in there, it can actually change its shape because it's a protein. And then the shape changed, and the molecule is now inside the cell. Totally makes sense, right? Once the molecule falls off inside the cell, change the shape back again. Transporters get stuff back and forth. These are three fantastically important types of molecules that we will be dealing with in physio. So the next thing we're going to look at are chemical reactions in general. You can imagine, I mean, these things we're dealing with chemical molecules, so chemical reactions take place. So let's take a look at the kinds of chemical reactions that can happen.


Hey, how's it guys this MJ students actually and in this video? I want to talk about the challenges of investing in Africa So what I've done is I've read this paper called investing in Africa a practical perspective for the South African institutional investor it's written by a company called investment solutions and They're a great company. Go check go check them out. They've got a cool YouTube channel And what they've basically done is they've written this whole report Which I've basically just taken the the graphs and I'm going to talk around the graph. So it's all of their work I'm just doing some sort of commentary on top of it so you can see here these are the authors and I mean one of the main reasons why they say you should invest in Africa They've given the full big reasons here is that Africa has strong growth rates. It's increasing its urbanization There's favorable demographics and there's a growing middle class Now what I want to do is focus more on the challenges or the risks associated with Africa and One of the first things I just want to mention is that in Africa. It's only Egypt Morocco and South Africa that are considered as Emerging markets the rest of the countries in Africa are Considered as something known as frontier markets, which means they're even more underdeveloped than the emerging markets So I thought that was that was quite interesting And yeah, yeah, we just can be going through these slides which which they've made and everything and Just can be pointing out some interesting things So first off what you can see is that? Developing Asia has performed the best in 2013 and 2014 in second place We do see Africa so Africa did come in second place So it does provide some nice, you know returns especially an environment where interest rates are very low in the developed world It's really cool that you can get some high returns by coming to Africa The other big benefit with Africa is the very low correlations if you look in the very first column Even just with say South Africa Morocco is only an 8% correlation with South Africa and Egypt only has a 6% So that is I mean that's really cool. It's really cool that you can find these low correlations So in a nutshell the big advantages of coming to Africa is that we offer some high returns Not the highest as just all the best, but we also offer a very low correlation Although correlation tends to dissipate, you know at extreme market events But while everything's running smoothly, we do have some nice low correlations Introduces great diversification benefits But what about the challenges? I think when people think of Africa the number one problem a lot of people think about is Corruption and I think if you see here South Africa we kind of like we're with the global average We're like average when it comes to corruption But if you look at all the countries that are really bad or have a lot of corruption Somalia Sudan Chad Burundi Zimbabwe Equatorial Guinea and Gola Kenya Nigeria You can see they all have very very bad corruption scores Compared to say countries like Denmark Finland New Zealand and Singapore which have like hardly any corruption Another thing with with Africa is That you can see that when we look at say the bond market You know how much of the bond market is capitalized compared to the GDP you can see how how small we are So we have a very very small bond market South Africa You can see with government and corporate together. We're only making up 50% of our GDP Now compare that to Asia where they're at like 350% although I do think that number is A little bit exaggerated because it includes Japan and Japan, you know, it has got quite a crazy You know percentage of bonds to GDP Unfortunately, they didn't include America in this graph It would have been really cool to to compare America, but interesting to see how small Africa's bond market is now This does present opportunities. It means that the bond market does have room to grow whereas say Asia Yeah, you don't want to grow that bond market anymore than it is there In the next slide. I just put a bunch of all they had a whole bunch of bonds I went and wrote in the credit rating just so that I could help myself check it out Interesting things to see was how much over subscribed these things were.  So that I thought was quite interesting The size of the issues are quite small and it was quite interesting to read the purpose Interestingly Senegal who had the best credit rating had the highest yield But then they weren't telling the people what they were going to use their bonds for so that was a little bit dodgy Although even that one got a four times subscription This slide over here. We seeing which countries are seen as Being investment grade. So South Africa, Namibia and Morocco are kind of like your investment grades with Botswana being You know quite an upper to medium investment grade. We're gonna come back to Botswana a little bit later They've got something very interesting with their stock market But what you can see is that the rest of Africa that actually has been rated So you can see majority of it hasn't even been rated But that which has been rated is either highly speculative or speculative Which means it's not a very good match for your institutional investors say pension funds life insurers You know the really big big players in the market This next slide here is looking at say private equity Africa is the the blue block and you can see it's it's really really small. So Private equity in South Africa is very small The reason for this is that there's not that many private equity managers who have long track records in Africa And just jar it's really difficult to do business. We're gonna see a few more challenges later Whereas if you say China China's huge and Latin America is also doing doing very nice over there Next I wanted to show you the the amounts of companies that are listed on the various stock exchanges in Africa What you'll see is that there's not many There's not many companies that have been listed and that is a problem in the market It means there's not that many sectors to choose from Interestingly Egypt look how they had like over a thousand companies like back in 2002 And then ten years later they got completely wiped out I think the reason for that was like the Arab Spring But I don't know exactly was Arab Spring in 2012 or 2013 or when exactly it was But that is a big surprise how many Companies got whacked off that South Africa also saw a decline South Africa. We've got quite strict regulations Institutional vests tend to stay with the top 40 So companies actually don't find it that feasible to to list they rather look at private equity deals Where there's just less paperwork This next graph was a little bit confusing Because what we got in the blue is market capitalization in 2012 and then in the green It's the growth in the capitalization So you can see Uganda and Zambia had this massive growth But they're coming off a very very small base Interestingly enough Zimbabwe had like zero growth probably negative if this graph was showing it South Africa you can see we are the the biggest market with capitalization Although interestingly enough Nigeria was Reported to have been a past us last year and if we see Nigeria at this stage wasn't actually that big But they did have quite a nice quite a nice growth Also look at your countries like I said Morocco in Egypt. Those are your merging I think Nigeria is now considered emerging as well. I don't think it's a frontier anymore But I do stand, you know correction there If we look at stock market capitalization as a percentage of GDP This is showing like how developed the market is relative to its size First thing you should check out is how Zambabwe has been absolutely Smacked by a lack of leadership in their political arena So that's a very bad thing to see Egypt also saw a little bit of a smack But I think like I said that was because of the Arab Spring I was curious just to know why Ghana decreased. I wasn't expecting that from from Ghana I would have expected that to increase, but you can see otherwise Besides those countries that I've mentioned there is a little bit of increase except for South Africa So that's I think has reached that maturity I actually consider South Africa more is a developed country than emerging although it's kind of like a weird It is a bit of a weird hybrid between the two If we look at annual turnover as a percentage of market capitalization in 2011 Here you can see, you know, how big South Africa is with Egypt in second place surprising is Zambabwe is still there in third It was I really try to find out where USA and Japan was what this graph basically is saying is how Liquid these markets are so the one measure is to look at annual turnover as a percentage of market capitalization as an indication of liquidity so we can see South Africa is great liquidity Egypt has great liquidity and Zambabwe finally enough Despite this problem still has the third best liquidity in Africa followed by Tennessee of Morocco's there Kenya, Nigeria And then Mauritius that's very good for Mauritius being a tiny little island Their economy is done very nicely Speaking of how economies have been doing let's actually have a quick little look at how how they have all been jumping around I mean check Egypt Egypt did an absolute boom in like 2005 that is massive and then it just crashed or dreadful Zambia also has been incredibly volatile. It's up and then it's down Mauritius seems to be doing quite nicely as well Unfortunately, they didn't show South Africa because they would have been quite a cool country to compare Okay, this I just found this very interesting these are the exchange trading times But swine is only open for 45 minutes. That is insane only 40. It's like guys. We're gonna trade Okay, everyone make your trade make your trade like like you can't go to the toilet during that time because that's the only time You have all day to make your trades I thought that was quite quite interesting for those of you looking at saying what is BRVM What that is is that is an exchange that has a whole bunch of countries like Ivory Coast I think Tongos also in it a few countries around it They use one exchange which I think is a great idea rather than each country having their own little exchanges It makes sense to group them together Then I looked at it wanted to see why coming back to private equity what Causes managers to stay away from certain countries. I did have to Google what MENA was or MENA However, you pronounce that that's Middle East and North Africa It's interesting. So when you consider Africa, there's basically three parts of it There's South Africa, which people consider by itself Then there's sub-Saharan Africa and then there's North Africa Egypt, Morocco and Algeria Which they kind of consider more as to be the Middle East This it's weird how they've done it and not just, you know, Africa as a continent, but interestingly Managers don't think that there's too much too much competition in Africa They do feel that there aren't that many opportunities at the opportunities are too small And they they feel like entry valuations actually quite cheap. So I thought that was quite good Interestingly enough Brazil had a political risk of just 10% back in when was this 2013? Which if you've been reading the news lately, you'll know that Brazil has massive political risk at the moment So, yeah, I think the big the big things with Africa is is this lack of liquidity the markets are small They're very thinly traded. It's hard to pull your money out It's hard to put your money in especially when you're coming in as a big-boy investor of say an institution You know the pension fund or something like that the markets are too small. There's also currency volatility I mean the rand experiences that as well. It's jumping all over the place African currencies are the same they jumping all up around and this introduces another risk that is not necessarily matched to your liabilities Think if you're a pension fund and you're paying out in US dollars, you don't want to be exposed to all the African currencies Political uncertainty again, that's a big one in in Africa Some countries are moving towards, you know better democracy, but they're still poor human rights in a lot of countries There's some presidents who've been like president for 30 years, you know There is like a lot of revolutions and coups and all that type of stuff happening There's also a lack of transparency because a lot of these markets are quite new their regulations aren't necessarily up to international Standards or they're written in different languages. So the transparency is still an issue in in Africa Like we said the bond market You know having all of its issues. It also still has poor credit rating and is not suitable as an investment grade Interestingly enough when it comes to Africa and you only like let's say you invest in Africa And you're like how did I do compared to everybody else? They don't actually have a standard benchmark. So there's a whole bunch of benchmarks But some include South Africa, but then if they include South Africa it makes up like 80% of the benchmark So they take South Africa out, but then Nigeria counts for like 50% of the benchmark And then some of them try to cap it and some of them include Egypt Some of them are like no Egypt's not in Africa and in benchmarks are absolutely stuffed up in Africa Like no one really knows how to measure the benchmark Which means when it comes to performance fees or seeing how you did to your competitors It's very very difficult. It also means a passive investment strategy is Difficult to take in on Africa, which means you have to go active which increases Fees, but how do you work out performance fees? It's just it's just a mess There also isn't really a derivative market in Africa. There isn't South Africa But for the rest of Africa you're kind of exposed to the currency risks and defaults in all of these type of things In your more developed markets, you know You can just go and say I want to you know want these derivatives want these little options with these little futures And you're all fine and everything's hunky-dory in Africa It's kind of still like the wild in these financial markets You're exposed to these risks and it's very difficult to hedge them out Then I just want to look at a few more challenges that the paper brought up They you know said poor productivity and higher labor costs I think that's when you're comparing it to to Asia, which has very high productivity and very cheap labor costs They said also Africa has poor public health systems, which means as an investor You don't really want to like be spending too much time in these African places because you could get like Ebola or these diseases And there's not really good doctors there So it's a risk for your own personal safety when you go as an investor into these places And you do want to do that for due diligence and all of that type of stuff There still is also a lack of education and skills development Which means if you invest in the company and it is doing well It's very difficult for that company to grow and hire other people because there's no one really of that skill So I'm hoping you're more and more but that should increase in time people You know education I think is is an upward trend Lack of access to finance I mean Africa doesn't have you know like in Europe There's these massive banks that have got lots of money and they can flood the the market with liquidity and finance all these projects Africa doesn't really have that many big banks or access to that type of finance Africa like I said, there's a lot of government bureaucracy and hindrances I mean in South Africa we have this thing called BEE Which just makes investing a lot more complicated for foreign investors They now have to learn these new regulations and these new rules Yeah, governments do make Yeah, like I said, but the political leadership in Africa is not that good and they do get in the way of business Africa is also exposed to if interest rates would rise in the developed world Then that that takes away like the whole incentive of coming to Africa So at the moment a lot of people are coming to Africa because it's a chance to get these high returns Which they can't get in their local markets But if interest rates increase back in their local home markets, then yeah, they're gonna be like cheers Africa You know, we don't need you so that is a big a big risk Again corruption I've mentioned before but it's worth mentioning again Africa Still has corruption issues High default risk. I mean Mozambique defaulted on its bonds earlier this year. I've recosed I think defaulted back in 2013 around there So I mean bonds are supposed to be the safe instruments and they are Experiencing high defaults and you saw that the returns they're high, but they're not that high I mean, it's like between five and nine percent and you know, these cars are actually defaulting So that is a risk not to be underestimated Like I said, regulation requirements are a nightmare Africa is not one country like everybody see things seems to think it is Each country will have its own rules its own regulations its own languages and to try and get around all of that or understand it You need a lot of lawyers and oh, it is quite quite difficult Also capacity constraints in the smaller markets If you are coming in with a billion dollars and you want to invest it You are going to be shifting the market the market will not have Capacity to take on such a big investment Which kind of then if you're an institutional vest It doesn't really make it worth your time to just put a little bit of money into Africa You know seeing all the information and knowledge that you have to get around the political and economic factors affecting the local markets Then you also have sector concentration. So if you do manage to get into the markets There's only like three companies really like there's telecoms There's mining's and there might be a banking share, you know, there's not that much Choice within these markets that you're actually getting Like you get in the developed markets develop markets They've got so many shares in the African markets. So there's still just a few it's just the big companies Like I said telecommunications is quite a big one But I think let me just nail this back in the biggest issue though is the lack of liquidity and It's a mismatch for a lot of institutional investors and it does, you know, bring in a lot of risk Liquidity liquidity liquidity if that's the one thing you remember from this video is remember that Africa does have a liquidity problem Anyway, I just wanted to end off this video with a little picture of Africa The people try to say that a misconception of Africa is that we're very commodity based and they'll try to show that a Lot of our GDPs are made up of different things So you can see in Egypt and Kenya and South Africa Services make up a much bigger chunk than resources Agriculture is also important and so is manufacturing In a whole bunch of these economies But anyway, that's that is the end of the video. We've come in at under 20 minutes Please give me a like if you enjoyed this video and I'll make more types of videos like this if you enjoyed it Thanks guys. Let me say goodbye. Cheers