Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining. We're going to give about one minute or two for everyone to log on, and I'll be back with you in just a moment. Well, welcome, everyone, to the webinar. My name is Sianne Testify. I'm a communications justice fellow at Public Knowledge, where I've been researching diversity in tech policy with a particular focus on early career roles in tech policy, because those roles can be very foundational in helping someone build a network or explore different issue areas in tech policy, and they can also help launch someone into a very influential role later in their career. This week, we released the report, Diversity in Early Career Tech Policy Roles, Challenges and Opportunities, and the report really summarizes ideas from conversations I've had with people about some of the barriers people of color face in beginning a career in tech policy. It also summarizes responses from a survey that we sent to different nonprofits that have a tech policy issue area focus. And what we really wanted to learn was what the early career opportunities look like in these organizations, what the racial diversity look like in those tech policy roles, how job opportunities were shared, and what approaches some organizations were taking to increase diversity. We have a great panel with us today. We're going to talk a little bit more about some approaches to increasing diversity, as well as different perspectives on the state of diversity in tech policy and the implications for communities of color. And we'll talk a little bit more about the value of mentoring. I'll go ahead and introduce our panelists. We have Elisa Valentin, the Special Advisor in the Office of FCC Commissioner Jeffrey Starks. We have Misty Perez Trudson, who is the Chief of Staff at Free Press. We have Joe Torres, who is the Senior Director of Strategy and Engagement at Free Press, and Dominique Harrison, the Director of Technology Policy at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. Thank you all for joining and participating and helping us elevate this conversation. I'd like to also thank the Nielsen Foundation and the Democracy Fund for their support of this project and this webinar. If you are joining us on Zoom and you have a question, you can click on the Q&A icon at the bottom right hand corner of your screen to submit a question. And if you're joining us on YouTube, you can submit your questions in the comments. Elisa, I'll start with you. I'd like to anchor these discussions about diversity and talking about the value people of color bring to tech policy conversations. And some of your observation really helped inspire our research. So can you just share what your perspectives are on how policy, tech policy discussions are really enriched with the inclusion of people of color? Yeah, sure. Well, thank you for having me and congratulations on your research. I know you work really hard on that.  But I do want to lift up Gene Kimmelman because he created the fellowship program at PK. He invested so much in the fellowship program. Christine DeBry, who I know continues to guide fellows and really kind of gave us the space to explore our interests and find our voice. Chris Lewis gave us responsibilities and opportunities to lead as well. And so the work that I did at Public Knowledge and even the work that I continue to do in Commissioner Sark's office, like wouldn't be possible without the support of those people over time. But to answer your question, I think it's incredibly important for people of color from diverse backgrounds to be part of and lead policy discussions, because we just experience the world in a different way. And if you're someone, for example, who comes from, you know, a family of immigrants, you're going to talk about, you know, issues related to privacy or surveillance in a different way. If you're someone who is from a rural area, from rural South Georgia, you're going to talk about broadband access issues in a completely different way. Or if you're someone who has lived in poverty or like just knows people who have lived in poverty or continue to live in poverty, you're going to talk about broadband affordability issues in a different way as well. So the narratives and the experiences that we elevate, it matters, right? And I think there's a lot of times where, you know, we might not have inclusive policy solutions, because we fail to diagnose the problem correctly from the jump. So a prime example I would say is, you know, with the Lifeline program that we have at the FCC, there were some, you know, kind of questions and proposals about if we should impose, you know, a co-pay or a fee to these folks who are already low income consumers. And $5 to some people is just, you know, Starbucks coffee run, right? But to other people who are on a really tight budget, that's how they get to and from work, right? And I would add that, you know, there are times that people of all intentions, even well intentioned people who, you know, really just can't see it outside of themselves. And so no matter, you know, how many times you can, you know, quote, Martin Luther King or have a Black Lives Matter sign outside of your house, at the end of the day, you don't experience life the way that I experienced. So it's really important to have those folks at the table and to listen to them, right? And to collaborate with people of color if we really truly want to create inclusive and equitable tech policies. Yeah, I'd like to add something. I mean, just topping off what, you know, Dr. Valentin said, and what's in the report, excuse me, is that, you know, you need diversity and policy discussions to center the concerns of Black communities in the conversation. That's something that we do at the Joint Center. What was mentioned in the report is that policy is not race neutral, right? And when policy leaders do not examine pre-existing disparities, there's risk of exacerbating them in the kind of legislation that has passed. Policy impacts specific communities in unique ways. So we need members of Black, Brown and Asian, Indigenous communities to be in leadership positions leading federal agencies or on teams at big tech companies to explore the benefits and costs of specific policies on our communities. Everything from antitrust to trade, to health, to education, to tech. If we are not in the room, many times our concerns are not on the table and they're not being addressed. And then these products or policies are being developed and end up having negative consequences for our communities. And so I think that's really important as we think about why we need to usher in a new generation of tech policy advocates and scholars who are from communities of color. I want to add to that, if I can't do that, Sianna, I totally agree with everything that's been said and I'll just add that if you address race, if you address anti-Blackness in our media system, in tech policy in our media system, for organizations that we work for, we actually achieve the goals we want to achieve as a mission for our organization. If we're trying to create a more just media system and not addressing race, then we're not serious then. We're not a serious organization. Because if you address the fundamentally structural racism that exists in our media system and we're all finding structural and institutional racism in our policies, right, in our missions and in what we do. But if you're doing that, not addressing race, then you're not really trying to solve the problem, you know, because and as people of color who work in this space, often many of us, you know, we're just not born with the knowledge. We have lived experience, of course, but knowledge about what's on our communities. We worked on that, you know, we have to study that ourselves. We have to learn that. I didn't learn anything about being what is to be Puerto Rican growing up in New York City, you know, if we're going to school, or going to college, that stuff I had to learn on my own in a community with other people of color, you know, and learning from other folks. So the reason folks are higher, and also have us as interns in life, because folks are working on this, this is an expertise that they have, you know, it's not just because the skin they occupy, it's also like it's also they are examining historical harms, you know, and trying to understand how this fundamentally is reflected in the system that we have that's hurt, that's harming us. So which other folks are not doing or need to do what they're not doing it, you know, so it's like, is an expertise you're also hiring, you know, that and combined with the live experience, to understand like what are the changes that need to happen in our meeting system, we're trying to better understand that needs to happen. Yet, there should be more of us working at these, at these places. Thank you. Thank you all for that. I think you touched on some really important points and making the case for why we need more people of color and tech policy. And, you know, I'll just add that I do find it especially compelling when people are able to share the stories of their lived experiences. And it really encourages, you know, bolder policy solutions. I want to turn the conversation into turn the conversation to strategies now. Dominique, one idea that we talked about in the report is the opportunity to frame tech policy issues in the context of social justice, because there's that dimension to tech policy issues. And, you know, one of the things that we were looking to explore was how job descriptions can, you know, encourage or discourage people. Can you share a little bit about how you think job descriptions and applications from or might encourage applications from people who might not have thought about tech policy as an area where they could pursue professionally? Yeah, thank you for that question. At my former job, I was doing some work around lack of representation within tech companies. I mean, I feel like when folks think about tech policy positions, they think that you have to be an attorney, right? And you have to be have studied this issue in your former education. And I don't think that's the case. I also think that you need to be very specific in your job requirements and qualifications, call it out, right? So everything from stating that you encourage diverse applicants to apply, right? Make it a requirement under the job description that candidates help identify potential civil rights implications of emerging technologies, state that the minimum qualification is that the candidate is interested or have experience and tech policy issues in the context of social justice. And lastly, it should not be a requirement, like I said, to have a legal background or degree. I'm a social scientist. I'm sure other folks like Dr. Valentin is a social scientist. You need those people in the room, data scientists and others who are community advocates, right? grassroots experts to be able to understand the nuances of how tech policy impacts people of color. And so I think that being specific and being open to the type of people who can do that job, right, being open to learning, right, and teaching the person in the organization will be helpful to attract a diversity of folks because I this is an interesting area for many of our communities, but they might not be aware of the opportunities that exist at different companies and within government. Great. And, you know, as we talked about in our in our last webinar, there were some questions from, you know, people in their early career search, and they shared that, you know, sometimes they were they expressed that they thought that they would need certain qualifications that I think a lot of people, you know, think about when they think when they hear tech policy. And, you know, they were wondering, you know, someone having a social science background or coming in to this space with a different background, are they suitable for these roles? Can they be competitive for these roles? And the answer is yes. And there's an opportunity to, you know, be more explicit about that in the job description. I'd like to move on with our conversation about approaches and ask you, Misty, a little bit more about Free Press's journey in bringing more diversity to the organization and centering race equity in your organization. We featured a case study from Free Press in our report. And we have Misty on here today to talk a little bit about the hiring practices your organization has adopted to try to minimize bias and evaluating candidates for a job role and other strategies you all have adopted to bring more diversity and inclusion into your workplace. Yeah, thank you so much for having me today. And it's great to just be here in community with all of you to talk about how we're changing the media and tech field and how we're changing the organizations we work at. We don't do this alone. We do this in community. We learn in community, so I'm really grateful for this. I think a lot of the ways that we've transformed our hiring process certainly started with job postings, like how are we being transparent about our values, about who we are as an organization, about the work that we do. And I think that really came from how are we centering racial equity in our work and the issues that we work on? We are not going to attract diverse candidates if we're not actually talking about the work that we do based on how they impact communities of color. So if we're not talking about access to broadband or affordability or surveillance or the future of journalism or hate and disinformation and the impacts it has on by POC communities, then people aren't going to see our values in our work. So I think it starts with our values in our work. It starts with the job descriptions that we put out there and being transparent and everything Dominique said, I totally agree. That's sort of our approach to it. And then when it comes to minimizing bias in our hiring process, so we've again borrowed from several organizations, folks like Race Forward, the Kairos Fellowship, the Colorado Open Media Foundation and others who, as we learn and as we engage in partnership, we say, oh, this is an interesting way to continue to innovate our system. So one of the things we do is we completely remove the use of cover letters. We don't ask for cover letters anymore. We start with a grounding and application question. So questions that will really tell us, why do folks want to work for free press? What is it about our mission and the issue areas that are appealing to them? Why this particular role? What is the skill set that they bring to this? What attracts them to the role? And then we might have a question or two focused on kind of demonstrated experience within that skill set. So we're hiring for a social media manager right now. Analytics is really important. How people use analytics in their previous experience and how would they apply it? We also always ask our applicants how they've advanced race equity in their work. It's expected that everyone within the organization has a role in advancing race equity through their work and through their role. And we make that very clear in our job applications as well. And we start that as part of the initial assessment. And so when we get those responses in, we also look to ensure we're building a diverse equity or diverse applicant pool. So if we've got 60 applicants and it's only 10% POC, we can't move on. Like we've got to actually do the work as an organization to recruit and attract diverse talent. And so what we do is we also send out a voluntary demographic survey. We do this after the fact we separate these things from the application because we want to make sure we're following legal guidelines as well. And we're evaluating that separately. So the hiring supervisor and myself will get a spreadsheet full of responses to all of those questions detached from the applicant's name or demographic information, their resumes, their work experience. And we will go through every one of those questions and individually rank their responses. So you can get a one to five on your response to why do you want to work for free press anywhere from you look like a great place to work to something really in depth about why free press and the issues we work on really resonates with someone. And so then we compare those results of the two hiring supervisors for myself and someone else without knowing how the other person did. And our operations manager will say, OK, here's where you land at of the 60 applicants. You've got 30 that you want to advance because a lot of these responses are really compelling. It's almost like a first interview. And then she'll inform us of the demographics of that that part of the applicant pool. So where are we at if we are at 50 percent or higher of IPOC folks, then we're able to move forward to narrow that down and actually look at the questions a little more in depth in the responses to say, let's get to an applicant pool. We can phone screen and every step of the way we look at where our demographics in that hiring process so that we know where we are and where we have work to do. And I think the importance about demographic information is that you're really clear with applicants.  But this isn't about the applicant, but it's about the organization. So those processes grounding in the issues that we work on with a race equity analysis, doing all the steps that we can to eliminate bias in the screening process, engaging a diverse hiring committee of folks who are diverse in race, gender and tenure, but grounded in the position. So a broad range of digital communication folks engaged in our social media manager hiring process, I think also creates a really rich assessment of applicants and further checks of bias of either the hiring manager or myself or the other folks who are participating in that. So those have been really key to us not only seeing more diversity in our overall applicant pool, but more diversity in our narrowed qualified applicant pool, which has been quite exciting for us and certainly led to a shift in free press. Thank you for sharing that, Misty. I'm through throughout reading the survey responses, you know, I've noticed some organization organizations had tried a few of the things you talked about, you know, particularly the one with, you know, creating questions, targeted questions for the applicant as opposed to something like a cover letter as a way of trying to encourage applications and encourage answers that might show that someone is really suitable for the role because of the value that they can bring through their lived experiences and their passions around that. One thing I'd like to touch on, even though we didn't cover it in the report, but I think can be really helpful in thinking about how we, you know, how we sustain people of color, you know, once they have begun their careers in tech policy and that is mentorship. And Joe, could you share a little bit more about your experiencing, your experiences mentoring people? Yeah, you know, for me, I've been real lucky in my career. I've had in my life to have folks who have been mentors to me and it wasn't like I'm your mentor, but have been there as someone who I can learn from, but also talk to. I've had a couple of major ones who really shaped my life, but I have so many people who who show up in my life that for a minute or for more than a minute, who who who helped to shape, who helped to shape me and my viewpoints and and provide support. Really, I think so much of like being like, like within our organization or within this sector, working with racial justice leaders is it's not only to like provide your expertise and kind of support to work one another, but it's also it's really like so often at times it's it's the emotional support, you know, it's like it's sort of the technical part is and like this is how you do your job and how you can do this is how how these are policies and you can think about and support folks in their work, but it's really just the human relationships and human connections, you know, of, you know, when you work in at institutions where you may be the only one or one of a few, it's hard, you know, it's hard. There's a lot of just, you know, you have to do a lot of stuff and within your organization or within the larger sector. We talk about policymaking and how often it doesn't reflect people of color may be mentioned often time to be three years as an add-on, but it's not centered, you know, it's like, you know, and so when you're fighting for your community and your voice is not being validated and you're having all these internal struggles within your own institutions, who do you get to, who do you community with and who understand your struggle? And I think like, I think like, you know, that's the emotional part of like being able to continue to find inspiration to work that you do is is is is continue to be in community with folks who have your back, you know, and you can talk to you about stuff, you know, because you don't have to hold on to it, you know, and it can help you get through that situation and know that you're just not alone in how you're feeling. You know, sometimes you may think you're crazy, but think feeling a certain way of emotion. It might be you like, it's me on the problem, right? That's why my ideas or my voice is not being heard. But it's like, no, no, no, this is like you're not alone. We've all gone through this, you know. And so and the other thing is I think for is important to with mentorship, anyone who's a mentor and anyone could be a mentor, right? I think, you know, I learned that it doesn't take a lot of people. We're not a big sector, you know, with the public interest community. We need a larger we need more people to be able to create change. At the same time, I believe and I was taught this that it doesn't take a lot of people to start create creating great change, you can create great change with with a dedicated handful of people, you know, a dedicated staff around the Hill at the FCC can do so many great things, can do some wondrous things, you know what I'm saying? And like, who are who are dedicated and determined. And then and then, you know, and and too is like a job of a mentor is to create more leaders, you know. And I think we need more leadership and we need more people in here in here. So folks have leadership to be able to to build a bigger army. So a folks lack of own what's great word army but build a bigger a bigger base of support to create because I truly believe if we change the narrative than our media system and all of this why I got into this about narrative, right?  And the Latinx narratives and the harm it does to public policy throughout we can change the narrative in this kind in this in our media system and our tech system. We have a chance to change other public policies that help people of color, whether it's education, health, criminal justice.  And we see like folks know how to use narrative to demonize historically, black folks, people of color. And so we need a bigger army to I. I believe I'm a part of a racial justice movement, right? But I do it through the sector of media, you know, that's that's my contribution. And so we're trying to create a more liberated just future. We need a bigger army. And so we need to mentor folks, you know, to understand the system and how the system is doing harm to our communities. And so and then and then build those relationships that we support one another, you know, we support one other emotion because this work is not easy. And sometimes working at these institutions is not easy as well. No. Oh, can I just quickly add, you know, when it comes to kind of creating the army or a larger base, I think it's definitely important to bring in folks from, you know, historically black colleges and universities, tribal colleges and universities, other minority serving institutions that may not be like connected to these various circles as well. And, you know, at the FCC Commissioner of Starks actually started the early career staff diversity initiative. And it started in January. And we actually have an intern in our office now, who's from Southern University in Louisiana. There's law school there. And, you know, without that opportunity and like paid internship and that sort of a thing, they may not have been able to, you know, participate in the FCC's internship program. So I think it's definitely important and to make sure also, and no public knowledge does this, you know, we got to pay our interns, you know, and I would like and we I think we need to do that throughout like the federal government. You know, I think it needs to happen in nonprofit organizations. Like we we have to to do better about that. So yeah. And one last thing I wanted to say is that not only is mentorship important, but we need our white allies to advocate and to cheer lead for communities of color people who are great candidates for these positions, right? They are often in offices and meetings and rooms where we are not. And if it's not someone bringing up our name saying, hey, look at Mr. Or at least Joseph, he's a great we should then no one is going to say that, you know, we're out here, we're available. We have great experience knowledge and etc. And so it's so important for our white allies to be understanding of the kind of candidates that are diverse and the importance of nominating them and saying their names so they get the recognition and are able to get the positions that are within these organizations. I tell you this position that I have right now. My boss who mentored me Spencer Overton said that, you know, 13 people around mentioned my name before getting the job. That means that I wouldn't even have to be there. And someone said, hey, you should take a look at Dominique. And so I just think and I want to emphasize the point of how important that is that we need to be talking about diverse candidates. And if we don't have people advocating for us, then oftentimes we're overlooked. Yes. And I just want to add, I mean, Joe is incredibly humble. He's also an incredible mentor both inside and outside of the organization. And so I mean, he was the first phone call I received when I started at Free Press. I remember that he intentionally reached out and continued to. And I can look across our field and organizations and see where Joe also did that to other folks coming into other allied organizations, reaching out and saying, hey, I know what the sector looks like and I'm here. I'm here to be a mentor to you even even outside of Free Press. So I think making sure that we're engaging with IPSE folks outside of our own organizations to to offer that community, that networking and that connection and throughout, you know, throughout the last however long there's always been sort of formal and informal networks. And I think it's really important to create that space and to support staff to take advantage of that space, too. I think this was something that we talked a lot about in the last three years. We've done a lot of hiring and a lot of entry-level hiring, too, and also wanting to make sure that the staff of color who were coming in had the time and the space to participate in either PSU luncheon or networking or just time with other organizations that were more diverse than Free Press because, you know, we're still growing, we're still changing. And so I think that's really important to look about how we can use connections across organizations and throughout our sector. Yeah, and my last thing you can, you know, I've been able to meet through this job amazing, like, racial justice leaders and people of color, like, who've been able to really help me grow as a person and human being and also my own knowledge of who I am and my relationship to this country as a person and public descent, you know. So it's like I've, it's been it's been amazing, like all the folks you get to meet and those all folks are mentors in a lot of different ways, you know. And so it's not just people within your organization in on it. And I didn't make this point before, but I didn't make it clear. Doesn't just have to be people within your own organization, you know, it's people also outside the organization to who are the mentors. Great. Thank you all for contributing your thoughts on mentorship. Some of the things you all brought up, I think sort of helps us shift to understanding how powerful networking can be. And one thing that we learned through the survey, when we asked the respondents to share a little bit about how job opportunities were shared and how frequently they're shared in certain ways. You know, one thing we did learn is that a lot of these opportunities are shared primarily within the tech policy space. And, you know, one thing I asked people throughout my conversations, I asked, you know, how can we create more enduring networks with, you know, HBCUs, HSIs, tribal colleges and universities and other racial based affinity networks? You know, one thing I learned, for example, with speaking with someone who works at an HBCU is that tech policy organizations can do more to sort of create a stronger presence.  I'm wondering from the panel, are there other ideas that jump out to you that you think, you know, would really help bridge the tech policy gap with communities of color? And I recognize that this is something that, you know, we could all benefit from reflecting on more. But I wanted to elevate that issue of networking because it's one that we think that, you know, we can make some improvement in or organizations, rather, can make improvement in. I want to also touch on another point about collecting data on race and ethnicity and how using metrics like that might help organizations, you know, I think it could encourage them the accountability there. Do any of you have thoughts on best practices about using data to encourage change? Yeah, I can share a bit on that. And also just thinking of your previous question in terms of building relationships with universities and academics. Like, I think what we've seen from that is where we have relationships. We see a flood of applicants coming in. So taking the time to build those relationships, whether it's through guest lecturing, internship programs, partnering with the universities, you know, having strong relationships with professors who are invested in the field, some of our staff are adjunct professors, like where we have like even a small relationship we generally see an increase in applications from. So taking the time to really invest, I think, is a great way to further diversify the applicants for both fellowships and positions. And your report also inspired me to think about, oh, yeah, and how do we engage in externships as well? How do we ground with academic institutions, POC-serving academic institutions where we know that we need to really advance our research chops or something of that nature? Like, I think that's another important way to do it. In terms of data, I thought a lot about this after our conversation. So I mean, I think I said this earlier, but collecting demographic data is a great way to hold ourselves and our institutions or organizations accountable to our commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion. So I was surprised to see maybe I wasn't totally surprised to see that a lot of the orgs you surveyed didn't collect demographic information. There's so much that you can learn from that in terms of how are you doing as an organization in your commitment? And if you're committed to this, what does the data say? So in terms of best practices, I'm not a lawyer. I don't play one on TV or webinars, but I do think it's important to consult with your general counsel to be sure that your practices are guided in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act so that you're ensuring you're covering yourself and making sure you're doing this in an appropriate way. So again, once you've got a grounding for why you want to collect demographic information, then you have to do your job to be sure that you're simultaneously guarding against discrimination in your selection process. So go ahead and collect it and keep it separate. You'll learn about your applicant pool and the work you have to do. We also collect demographic information on our staff annually, and we again review that annually so that we get a chance to see what is the diversity of our staff, both in leadership positions, entry-level positions, who's progressing, who's not progressing. I think one of the places that we have talked a lot about is what does it look like when you diversify your staff with junior or entry-level positions and there's only one or no POC supervisors, right? So that was a place where we were able to look at the data and be like, E, this has to change. Like, you can't continue to bring on by POC folks and not have a diversity of leadership or a diversity of supervisors. And so that's one way for us to show how these changes can take place over time, but also to check ourselves. What does diversity look like within our leadership teams, our executive team, within folks who are leading campaign work or programmatic areas of work, within folks who have decision-making power? Like, how are we actually using the data to ground in what we think is happening within our organizations, but also to hold ourselves to like what we're committed to. So if we're committed to increasing the number of people of color who are supervisors in our org, what's the data showing us about that over time? And if it's not moving, then we're not doing our job. What's it telling us about the number of people of color who are reporting to POC supervisors? Because that's important too. And if that's not changing, then we're not accounting for the feedback we're receiving from our staff. So I think there's a lot of really good reasons to collect and to regularly review the demographic data. We also look at it in terms of equity and compensation. So what does it look like within our tiers? We have a five-tier compensation system. What does the, what does diversity look like throughout that? What does it look like when you look at Black Indigenous POC folks or you look at it by gender to say, where are the salary ranges? What's the difference? What's notable on an org-wide level? What's notable on a tier level? And why? How are we accounting for that? Or how are we making changes to account for that? So I think it's incredibly valuable. I think it's an important guide and an important accountability measure. And I think at an organization like FreePress where there's 34 folks, we also have to be mindful of like, how do we grapple with some of the things the data shows us, right? So I told you earlier that in our hiring process, we look to have a diverse applicant pool. Well, at one point, we were hiring a few years ago and we had only 40% of people of color in the applicant pool. But when we looked at the qualified applicants, they were 100% POC and the finalists were all Black. So we were kind of like, oh, do we stop here or do we keep investing and investigating and seeing what the data tells us about where our efforts have been spent? So I think there's important reason to use the data as a guide to inform your practices, but also you have to grapple with what it shows you and what it tells you over time. Yeah, I just wanna emphasize that I think that data is very important. If racial equity is a North Star, how do you know you're getting there if you're not collecting the data? If you're not transparent about the information? If you're not holding people accountable, managers for hiring and diverse candidates? And so it's very important to collect it. And the EEOC actually encourages that you collect that information so you know that you can have diverse representation within companies. We actually had a commissioner a part of one of the convenings I did at my former job who was when we were talking about these issues around importance of data and sharing data, particularly within tech companies. And so sometimes often when folks are filling out job applications the questions are actually there and people have to answer they don't have to, but they have the option of answering their race, age and disability question. So anyways, I just wanna emphasize how important it is because if you don't know where you're going and how you're gonna get there the data will help you get there by knowing that information. Great, thank you, Misty and Dominique for your perspective on that. We're in a good place now to turn to some questions. So I have one question here. How can technology policy influence influence changes in diversity leadership roles? I think this question is trying to get at how how can organizations encourage diversity and more senior roles? Any thoughts or perspectives on that? I think it goes back to is the organization centering race? If the organization is centering race and believe that if you're addressing anti-black racism anti-POC racism, you actually are like, we see what's happening in the world is in this country. It's like it's a multiracial democracy possible, right? When democracy has been fully realized, right? And this is what the struggle is, right? And so if we're gonna democratize our tech system and media system, we have a good chance of achieving a multiracial democracy, right? Which I like to think is the goal many folks share. And so you have to grapple with it because it's just not like the idea you're gonna just hire POC folks to get into these positions of power within your organization because there needs to be folks who acquire power because representation is important but presidents like Rashad Robson also often accept color change. Presence is in power, right? Power is the ability to change the rules, right? And so can you change the rules of your own organization of how you actually do business? How you actually approach the policy, right? And I'm talking about non-POC led orgs, right? For the most part, right? It's like, and so getting a person of color into a position of power is that person gonna be allowed to fully bring everything they have to especially if they're advocating on race to make sure that is addressed in the policies, you know? And that's where organizations need to really grapple with if folks who haven't done a sufficient job of employing people of color in senior positions is giving the power to fully bring that part of themselves to the job and for our organization, I'd just say I think really important is really hard to change organizational culture, right? It's really hard, right? And that's where you have to be willing to change. If you're not willing to change, it's not gonna change, right? But if you're willing to change, I think, and it's hard to and then you don't know how to do it, that's why I think for us as we press like we benefited from having like really skilled consultants to help guide us, you know? So if you have a ability to have consultants to be able to guide you to your better angels because otherwise sometimes when you grapple, you kind of like have a circular argument all the time. You're all kind of pushing each other buttons and it gets, you're not really resolving anything, you know? And so that's where you can have like a neutral third party to be like helping you all get into the next step. And it's who's real skillful at that. And so it's hard for an organization to change their culture, you know? It has to happen. But what are the, what are the help you need as an organization to empower those folks of color and your staff to change the dynamics within your own, you know, the way you go out doing business? And if you do, I think you actually have a much stronger organization, obviously, you know? Thank you. Thank you, Joe, for that response. I have another question I think is pretty timely given that we're mostly working virtual right now. This person would like to know some ideas or strategies or approaches to facilitate or encourage networking opportunities when so many of our colleagues are still in the virtual space as we navigate COVID. So going back to networking opportunities and how we might be able to create those opportunities in the virtual world, have any of you had experience with that during COVID or have any ideas on how we can think about still trying to make sure that we're in communication with different communities and allowing that networking space to take place even though we're virtual right now? Yeah, so I guess I'm gonna announce this here. It'll be on social media, I guess, after this. But Latinas and tech DC, we are having an event with Black Women Talk Tech DC chapter next Thursday and it is a networking event. So I'll post that on my Twitter after this, but that's something that we're doing, a kind of virtual dinner and networking breakout session. So hopefully we can kind of collaborate in the future and people can meet each other in this kind of virtual world. And I'll also say something that one of my friends is doing, she's having like office hours and she's a pretty high-up person in the tech space. I think that's something, Gray, if you're someone who people would like to chat with and get mentored by and all of that, then maybe you should set 30 minutes an hour on your calendar every month and for people to stop by and have kind of a virtual coffee with you. Thank you, Elisa, for sharing that. Sounds like a really great opportunity. But those ideas like that for the person who asked the question, I think is one way we can sustain networking opportunities even though we're all virtual right now. Still looking for a few more questions. I think we're at a good place actually to ask my last question, which is what advice would you all give to organizations that might be in the very early stages of trying to bring more diversity into tech policy roles? Can just be your observations or if you have experience and have been in the early stages of promoting an effort like this, what advice would you give to people just beginning these efforts? I mean, I have a suggestion and I really wanna get to an issue I brought to you, and what I wanted to see on was that the space is small, the communities of color who are running some of these tech policy groups or organizations want to examine a number of issues, but our teams are not that big. We don't have the proper resources and the financial commitments by foundations to do the work we wanna do. So we need foundation support, that means money, so that we can hire more people to help us do the work. We can create fellowships, that we can create more opportunities for people of color to be in these positions, to examine these issues, to be able to rise up in these ranks to do the work that we're also striving to do. And so I would really put pressure and encourage foundations to look at racial equity organizations, tech policy groups that are doing the kind of work that they're interested in and support them, right? We need that financial support to be able to hire people. And I can't hire a person and build a great program at the Joint Center if I can't get money from a foundation to do this kind of work. So I really wanna stress that part and I'll allow my fellow colleagues to talk about other kind of opportunities. But just to your point, we did ask in the survey, we asked organizations if they were funding available to increase the number of opportunities, especially early career roles, would they seek funding to advance that? And everyone said that they would, right? So it's definitely something that tech policy organizations would like to have support around. I just wanna second how many it's like, there needs to be more funding to orgs of color in this space. And it needs to be more org foundation funding in this space. There needs to be more foundations who have a portfolio on media and tech policy because it's related to like building democracy, right? But then with that is more money needs to go to orgs of color for sure who are, because I mean, just look at the statistics, you talk about data, just look at the data of how many black led or Latinx led, so forth, we see foundation dollars. And it's another place where that's been long the story, and that has to change, you know? So I'll say that my colleagues, right before Christmas wrote a column, because we've worked on journalism for the Neiman Foundation talk about like, what should the Knight Foundation do? What is being dollars? And how should we redistribute it to black led journalism projects, you know? And dreaming of what that would be. So yeah, it needs to be addressed because it needs to be addressed. So yeah, I just want to second what Dominique is saying, for sure. And I would add like, if you are an organization that is really well funded, right? Don't just give lip service to things about like racial equity, right? You have to also put the resources behind it. If you have a fellowship program, don't pay people $30,000 a year to live in DC, right? You have to give them a livable wage. And I would also say as it relates to kind of workplace culture, you know, allow people to show up in the world as they show up, right? You don't have to look a certain way to be a tech policy advocate. You don't have to speak a certain way to be a tech policy advocate.  And, you know, I would also say, you know, don't make assumptions about what you think folks' interests are when they enter your organization, just because they are a person of color. They might not want to be pigeonholed to only doing like diversity and inclusion work. So I think that's something that's important as it relates to workplace culture as well. Yes, I can say yes over and over. Yes, I mean, all of that, like it takes an investment of resources. It certainly does. And both from foundations and organizations saying like actually we need to make an investment in this work and the investment is substantial and it's over time too. Like it's not something, you know, everybody goes to a training and it's done. It's got to be a sustained investment from both funders and from organizations. And I think we touched on this a bit with the first question, but like leadership is really important. The leadership within an organization has to champion racial equity, diversity and inclusion and not just as talking points like they actually have to be invested in doing the work themselves and doing the work through their role within the organization and in doing the work to actually support a transfer of power and a transition in leadership, especially for white led organizations. It's essential. I mean, we learned this lesson a lot when we go out and work in partnerships with organizations that are ready to do this work. But when we run into a space where leaders aren't ready to do this work, it doesn't succeed. So that I think is really critical. And that's both from the leadership within the organization to diversifying your board. And then to ensuring that people of color have leadership opportunities both within their role and to grow within the organization. I think this like shifting of power is something that we've talked a lot about at FreePress and I've again looked at like, how do we use the data to monitor that we're actually doing this? We're not just saying like, yes, we want to shift power, but we're actually shifting decision-making power. We're actually moving away from like processes that are either really hierarchical or bureaucratic to like, how do we support folks moving with autonomy to make decisions both within their role and for the organization that have impacts and changes on both the work that we do. And I mean, I just want to say that to make it plain, if you want diverse talent, you need to do the work. You need to do the research. Go on Google, go on LinkedIn, go and search for these organizations and see where these different candidates are. So when people are saying, oh, there's enough people are not applying, we can't find, I mean, we're out here. You just got to do the text dedication. I think that's a part of your job is that you've got to find the right and great talent that's out there. And if that means spending a couple of hours on LinkedIn, online, looking for those people and reaching out and saying, you should apply to this position. I think you're a great candidate. Then that's what's going to take. And so we shouldn't be, people shouldn't be quick to assume that's going to be a quick and easy process. It's going to take work. And that's what racial equity, getting to that next step, that place is going to need. Can I have a moment of thinking? I mean, there's so many great things being said. Like, Alisa, what you just said about like not pigeonholing people of color, you know, there's no shame in like a person of color who doesn't want to race equity, let's say for example, right? I have no like, I was a journalist and I was a worker journalist association. And a lot of journalists, like don't give me the diversity beat because that is no way for me to get ahead in my job.  I'm not going to advance in my career. I mean, that's always a fear, right?  This is not a career for career advancement, right? I mean, that's some of the fears I've seen through the years, you know, in working and it's like, it's legit, folks got to take care of their families, is a real, you know, and pay for, pay the student loans and all this other stuff, right? And so, and with that said, also to white folks, when you have people of color, and I agree with you, you said, Dominique, early on in this conversation, that you don't have to be a lawyer or a part of the policy team to affect policy, right? Policy should be the vision of policy should be held by many, you know, and not just within the policy team. The folks who have the expertise, they say to lawyers and stuff like that, that can help guide folks on how the law works and what, if we want this vision, this is how we can get there. But that doesn't mean they have to come up with the vision themselves, right? And it's to the exclusion of not interacting with folks who don't have a policy background, let's say like technical legal policy background. And last thing is like, in white folks got to do the work themselves on race. You know, it's like, they have to also become more knowledgeable about race and structural racism.  But they have to also like say, like, oh, I don't have to work on this because we have this person here to work on it. And you have to work on it as well, you know, you're not excluded from working on it, but you follow the lead of people of color when it comes to what the solutions are, you know, and you can contribute to that vision, but we should follow the leadership of other folks, of people of color in it. Anyway, but you are not excluded from that work. So I'll stop there. Thank you all so much for weighing in and sharing and giving your opinions and expertise. We're almost at time. I wanna say before we conclude the webinar, you know, we'll send a follow-up email and it'll have my contact information. If there is something else you wanted to discuss and didn't get to ask or didn't have your question answered, please follow up with me and I can reach out to the panelists so they can have more time to reflect on responses to a few of your questions. And I wanna thank you all for attending and being a part of this conversation. I hope it's something that we can sustain and, you know, this work is ongoing and I hope that you'll leave the webinar with some ideas and things to reflect on.


If I could figure out how to work this, who would be alive? Alright, that is not enough. Sorry for all the motion in the ocean. Get it? Because I'm doing Oceanscape. That's funny. It's punny. What's up, my early birds? Hope you all are doing well today. Thanks for something to paint for you guys today, since we're going live tonight.  Let me tell them no more group texts. I'm just telling everybody I can't answer their group texts because I'm going live. I thought I muted your phone. I'm live on Jeff's phone right now. So, I was inspired by this artist from Instagram, but all it really says is artist. Oh, Yelena James. She does beautiful, like, ocean-y, scapey thing, like this. Sorry, guys. Hopefully that will stop momentarily. And so I want to do something like that. So, first, I'm going to need to create my ocean-y background. I'm going to be layer iron-mangled before you serve any of it. So, Jacqueline, that mold I would let set up for just overnight, or like 10 hours. So many people are here. I'm glad you guys came in. I know it's really early. Huh? It is way early. So, I'm going to need to do my background all blue-y. So, I'm going to drench an alcohol as per use. And I didn't check to make sure this is level, so I'm 100% sure it's not level. I need blood. Super pumped to see all you guys here. Hi, Petra. I haven't done, like, I guess this is, like, flooding alcohol inks. I don't know what this dial is called. I'm going to eat that up just now, right now. I haven't done a flood alcohol ink this size in a while. So, this is going to be an adventure for me, too. So, I know for sure I want it to be, like, deep ocean. So, I'm just using a whole bunch of dark blues and aquas. So, he's here to monitor, make sure things going proper. Ileza, Brita, Metrodorus, so many fam. I don't really have a design idea for this as of yet. I just want it to be a whole bunch of dark blues, for sure. And some, like, gold areas. Hi, Lori. Hi, Brooke. You know, the sale went well last night for Scarlett. Our sale is tonight, though. So, if you're still in the market for some artwork, I would love to have you guys join us. Jeff's going to have his new clutch line. It was last night for a vampire one of your clutches.  Because I need to raise some funds for Jeff's birthday. He does not need shoes. Oh my gosh, you do not. Negative. You don't need any more shoes. You have four pair of shoes of each color. You need no shoes. He's now accusing me of ruining his dreams. I love that splayed, manly look from doing alcohol inks like this. Brilliant day today. Scarlett will be over here a bit later with her family today. How many clutches will be available? Probably two or three more. He has four available right now, but he's going to do a few more before tonight. You can do alcohol ink over resin. It should be just fine. So my ink is kind of drying as I go because the alcohol is evaporating. If you use really high concentration alcohol, it's going to evaporate really fast. That's just the nature of alcohol. So when that happens, you kind of just have to patch it back in like this. Make sure you get nice full coverage. And I think I'm going to let this area over here just do this because I'm really digging how it's looking. Just that soft blend that it's got going on. Now I'm just trying to keep it off of this area that I really like. I would definitely use a lot of, we're doing inks over resin. Okay, Bowie. We've had like suicide birds up front of our window. Bowie is not a fan. Or maybe overheated a little bit. I've never really been good with watercolor. So I always thought that I wouldn't be good with like alcohol inks or anything like that because of my inability to watercolor. But it just took a little bit of practice and patience and a few fails. Fails are definitely part of it, but you know, this piece is coming through so far. I really want it to look very like underwater, very like deep ocean. I'm going to add some coral reefing on top of it. Hi, Bowie. It's definitely very interesting the different looks you can get depending on how you manipulate the ink, whether you add alcohol, what strength of alcohol if you use a blending solution, what surface you paint on, all of it changes how your inks behave. This may be kind of a longer live feed because I want to get it finished before a live feed tonight for the fire sale. So feel free to stay and watch or, you know, do life. Stop in whenever you can. I think I'm going to add some like metallic textures as well because I am going to coat it in resin. Let's take you guys for a close-up. See what you guys think. Kind of looks underwatery, right? Can you see like big sea fans, some coral rock, open water? Anyone else seeing that or am I alone? I'm going to check and make sure everything's dry before I spray seal it. I was just swimming in it. I would love to be part of your world. Thank you, thank you, be here all day. All right, I'm using archival spray mat. It's very important to use the mat because you can also use the satin but anything beyond that, like the gloss, is going to reactivate your alcohol because there's alcohol properties in this paint. The spray. I'm going to tell you guys that you need to be in a well-ventilated area when you use any aerosol paints or sealants or adhesive. Anytime you spray anything out of a can, don't breathe it or a respirator if you need to. And don't be around an open plane. I am going to coat this bad boy and resin most likely but I'm still going to spray it as if I'm not going to because even if I wasn't going to, I would want this to be the protectant to keep it from fading. It also deepens the color. But since I am resigning it, the important thing is that if I just put resin on it, the resin itself is going to fade my ink just because of the heat and whatever science is in resin, just trust me that you want to seal it in really well. One really good coat should do it. Once you don't see the shine anymore, you'll know that it's dry. Since the board is still hot from all of the heat I've been adding to it, it's hard for me to keep up with where I've sprayed already because it's drying matte. You can tell because where I've sprayed is shiny. So I'm just going to have to trust myself which is way scary. It sounds good. So, Leah, it's pretty matte. It doesn't matter what you're spraying on, like if you're not spraying on inks and trying to protect it. What's the matte that you use when we do Belle Marble? Is it Rust-oleum? When we do Marble Finish countertops, we do Rust-oleum matte finish. But I don't know how UV-resistant that is. So if you're using a lot of whites, I would just do some research on that first. Dorian, all sealed in. So I think I'm going to make the vantage point here. And I've never drawn on top of alcohol inks before. It's always been yet free. I really like it. I hope I'm not about to ruin it. What do you think, Bea? I'm not about to ruin it but I'm painting all that stuff on it. It's true. I can always make another one. My pleasure, Lisa. Okay, yeah. That should work just fine for you then. Leah. So... I don't even know where to start with this. I'm scared. Okay. Just go. Right? No sense in being nervous. Just need to go for it. I'm going to go for it. All right. Right, Trudy? Oh, my pleasure, Leah. People mispronounce my last name all of the time.  And I guess I'm going to move you guys up here so I don't miss what y'all are saying. I'm just going to drop all of that. Just go for it, right? Right. All right. I'm scared. Okay, go. Do a sale preview for sure. Joanne, this is a canvas board that we have available in our store, artistildet.com. It's just a round-crayle board that we prepped and I did an alcoholic piece over. Let me know if anything's too difficult for you guys to see or if you have any questions. I guess this is like my version of Jeff's like doodle pieces. I'm really excited to see what this piece is going to look like with resin on it because resin always has a way of bringing out all the vibrant colors that he used. I'm glad you guys are enjoying this because I usually don't do anything that's not quick as alive. Like, if I can't finish it in 30 minutes or so, I usually try to do it as a time lapse. But since tonight is fire sale night, I wanted to give you guys a good amount of actual art today as well.  Kind of like one of those pieces that you do where you kind of like zone out and just kind of hone in on one area that you're working on and you don't even realize what you're doing until you're done with it. Don't really think about it. Don't stress about it. It's just when it's done, it's done. I'm talking a lot of you guys. I never realized how difficult it was to read and draw a straight line at the same time. Definitely not my new favorite thing to do. Just to shake up for a while. I was just asking Jeff yesterday how he doesn't like run his hand for something he's doodling on. And I can already feel myself like getting close to it. Elisa? Pebeo markers. I've been meaning to try it out. Pebeo. Pebeo. Pebeo. Pebeo. Pebeo. Are there any questions I can help anybody with? This will probably be way more fun as a time lapse for you guys. Absolutely, Teresa. Have a good day. If I miss a question, if I miss Bouvier, hope to see you tonight. Kind of the flood coat. As soon as it's dry, it should be fine. I'll probably seal it in again with some matte spray. So I did have inspiration for this piece for everybody that's coming in. This is by Yelena James, I think. There's like a super high chance that I'm saying that way wrong. Frivetra's had. Where'd it go, Posca? I'm sorry, not Posca. Pebeo. My apologies. That's Hatch. That's awesome. I'll have to look into that idea. Austria. Speeders are important. Awesome. You're almost done with it. I'm sure that was quite an undertaking to finish that piece. What else do we have in here? Black. My name's that one. I won't use silver. Okay, gloss permanent. But it doesn't tell me what color. What did you guys are okay with the candid lives for right now? What's up, JJ? For those that are no. Thank you, Claudia. The bass was shaking the camera. It's funny. The bass fled like trees. Did it look okay today? Not dry. The inspiration, what was it? Yellen James. Realize how long you're doing it for.  Mm-hmm.  Not think about it. It's for sale. It's for doing. Right.   Because all you did was draw. Because it's funny to say, I'm going to be an artist if you were born. I want to agree with you. This is Ginny on Facebook. I'm going to let her know. She'll message Gin on Facebook. I'm going to let her know. She can bring that peace by. Oh, I agree. He's going to remind myself that nothing in the ocean is exactly perfect. And that it's okay. If it doesn't look exactly like you had in mind. I think that I would be used to that idea of just because you have it in mind doesn't mean that it's going to be that way. What's that, Clibby? All right, boys. Having a peace dropped off that we let a friend borrow for an exhibition. I want to make sure we had it for tonight. Fire sale. Oh, maybe it's clear. Hey, girl. How was your day? Good day. What's your name? I wanted to give the people some art today since we're going to be doing all fire sale tonight. That's my time. Give me a red bull, please. Nice. Yeah, lips galore over here, dude. So many lips.  It's going to be very busy. Yep. It is Clara. I guess they're very important. You think I should resin over those or just leave them like that? I just want them black a little bit like that. Like that's kind of simple, a little cheaper. Either these or there's a good 15. Oh, okay. And those will be five. Yeah, they're good. I think there's a quick couple over there. Yeah, exactly. Always be on a little cuddle bug. Yeah, I can just color it in there. If you find that it feels like it's kind of wearing out, push out it, shake it. Mm-hmm. Oh, thank you so much, Desco. Probably just kind of finish it up like this and call it. This is the cutest thing I've ever seen. Also, Miss. I wish I could take you to the store. I wish I could take you to the store. What about donations from them? Mm-hmm. People are never finished petting boys. Just tell me to tell our boys over there. Okay. How old are you? Just eight. Eight-ish? You got a hot date? Yeah, with you guys. If you're doing the Vanna White thing, I'm like, quite possible. You might see a little poppy seed pud in the middle. Poppy seed? Yeah. It's supposed to be something like that, I believe. Is there a question I missed? Anyone ever tried to turn any naked alcohol in? I would ask Jen. She's like Miss AI. And I feel like she did something like that once. Don't quote me. But I feel like that happened. I know she made her own ones. I don't know what she used to do it. So how was your evening? Good. Because I'm down for about an hour and then greater. Oh, I fell asleep. Basically, as soon as I got here. So did you get home? I was like, hey, bud. Are you going to play with the boys? Bet that didn't turn out. Have you stayed up late? I was really surprised. There's been updating videos on the server. And apparently updated Shrek. And of course, they all ended up watching Shrek last night. Hanging out together. So that's cool. He wasn't like on the case trying to figure out whose glasses those were? No. It was just a question like, that was weird. And that was the end of that. They kind of been there for a while. And then the cleaning lady knew from the front and center. That could be a possibility. There'd have been. I'm going to use prescription because that would be fun. That's what he thought. I'm going to use prescription safety glasses. So be done with this soon. And then we can work on that later. No worries. The fade possibility with ink and resin. Well, thank you, Crosshatch. We're always here to help. Prescription safety glasses. I need some of those. Did you leave some in Clara's house? Because she found some. He mysteriously appeared. There's a ghost. What a bad vision. Right. We have a nearsighted ghost in Clara's house. I really encourage you guys to go out and find something that inspires you to create. And then start with what you like about that piece that inspired you. And then take it from there to the next level. Make it your own. I was definitely inspired by this piece that I'm looking at. I'm not copying it directly. I'm just taking from it the things that I like. And then rebelling it my old way. I feel like something needs to be here. Not this color because that color is very... Yeah, it was probably Jeff's phone. Yeah, he did a rather nice posting of the Bowie piece. I see. Jeff? Mm-hmm. He's like something in the game. But he wants your attention. I mean, it sounds like it. The boys? Bowie has the Bowie fan. I need to be honest with him. I mean, the Bowie fan.  Is that your daddy, Bobo? Easy, man. You okay? Do you want to hear it playing right now? Ooh, babe, more of those. And I would do a whole piece because these two colors. Well, I just want to make it like... I don't want to overdo it. Isn't that amazing just sitting here just drawing? Just drawing. Yes, ma'am. That's right. Two boys. Now tell him. Tell him. Sounds like it's time for Kujo's medicine. Matthew, does he react fast? Yeah, that's good. How are you describing this free range? He is. They are free range poms. Michael's like, uh, it's a free range dog? I'm like, come on, Zoe. He's like, what? I'm like, except for she has all the acreage, too. All right. I'm almost done here, people. Then you'll be free to roam around the air. Can you roam about the cabin? Awesome, Robin. Everything looks like... Looks like no one just got dizzy. Add some of that frilly stuff. And then just feel it under resin. I feel like I want to add some bit. Put it all in resin. Do I have one of those fun things? I'm going to put some of this modeling paste on here. And it looks amazing under resin. It won't be a texture like a tangible texture. Look, it's this. I know what it looks like. I'm not sold on the idea. You can always do another one, right? Oh, um, Scarlett's asking what time do you want the carrier for, uh, Scarlett to come over? I mean, we're bringing the kids over today. Okay, so we got it coming out. The stuff looks so great under resin. The figures Scarlett and Claire would understand easier than the kids would. This stuff is so great to add just a little something extra. Is that modeling paste? Yeah. But it's the metallic one from Judy's. Oh my god. If we're going to work on a mermaid? Yeah. We'll work on that. Yeah, probably not today, probably tomorrow, right? Yeah. So we'll get everything else taken. Yep. All in it though. Yeah. Awesome. What about them? Yeah. Everything about that is the most awesome. I guess it's got so much personality, I think, is what it is. What do you think? It's pretty good. Right, Alias? She does the most incredible work. Anyone have a good solution on how to make bigger ones for a table or how to find the supplies? How many are you talking, Gary? It's just a modeling cream. Do you know where she got it from? I think it says out of Germany, but I think you can get it off of, like, Amazon. It's got a pearlescent to it. Mm-hmm. I tried to pick it up and tilt it for the camera, but I don't know what I saw. I'm trying to avoid, like, Airbnb print stock photo painting. Mm-hmm. But still be, like, something that someone would want in their beach rental. Yeah. If any of that makes sense. Mm-hmm. I'm also trying not to try this stuff out. I'm not sure why I put this blob of stuff here, but I need to figure out how to tie it. Mm-hmm. I need to trickle a line. I kind of love that and fade it out. I like this. Like, where you kind of got, like, a blob area, I kind of faded it out, too. Blob, it's a technical term. Yeah. If I knew how to draw a jellyfish, I would make you do jelly. I bet we know somebody who does. Okay. J.J. says this piece looks amazing. Balls are incredible. Thank you. Do you know how to draw a jellyfish? I bet wood filler would make the texture just fine. And you can add it for a lesson on top of it when it dries. You know, like, some of maybe those jacquard pearls or something like that. Mm-hmm. Or even some of the blingens with a little bit of resin. Do you do it? Yeah. It's an exception. She does bow and arrow. Oh. She's very bowable no matter what he's watching. She's so jungly in your phone. Sorry. I should. I'm sorry from your life I'm going to be. No, it's okay. I just was like, are you watching The Lion King? Yeah, Carrie, that's what she's kind of thinking about trying to blob into a really cool jellyfish. Oh, she's getting there.  She's never had an idea about looking for companies that have grown out of business for their display rounds. She just bought 13 and it was a clothing store. Yeah. Business is growing out of business. You never know what they're going to have display wise. Especially if you want to use it for any type of art shows and stuff like that. You can find really unique things to hang the pieces from or even just stair step displays, that kind of thing. We got some really good paint racks from an art store that was going out of sale. Oh, I remember that. That was a lot of it, really. A little bit of spray paint. You can make that little display thing your own. Spray paint can fix almost anything. Yep. Not sure, but I'm happier about it than I was. It's more incorporated. Definitely. The oceans always have shimmer, especially when you have schools of fish going through and then all of a sudden they just shift direction. It does always look so amazing. JJ, that's exactly what I'm talking about. He said he just got a four by four by four cabinet from where it's going to be his next art stash cabinet. Right? I think this is at 30.  Oh, I see that now. I got to delay on my pop-up though. Pop-up, I just learned. Learn to accept the things that I cannot change, et cetera. Oh, I just got my Marci paintings in. Yay, I'm excited. I'm doing a Sharpie collab with her. A Sharpie collab? Sharpie collab. So I got to get busy on it because it starts like, I think Sunday. So, I got to knock these things out. She's so great. So let's do two paintings. And she's like, what? So I had, of course, you know, how I do with you and everybody's like, I got this idea. Let's do this. And I'm like, let's do two paintings. You do whatever you're going to do. I said, I'm going to throw some sharks on there. And that way I'll send one back to you and you can have one. And I keep like, she's like, I'm on it. She was great work. As do you. It's going to be a great collab. Hey, JJ. I've got some of those white plastic tables, you know, like you see in office office supplies. And I picked up some from Amazon, but these tables they go to, you can do three different heights with them. And they've been proving really valuable. I've got several of them in my studio. And that way I can either put them together, make one among this table, put it up high for either displaying or if I need to, you know, do. Do some drawing some pie or, or you can drop it way down low for a larger piece. I've got two tables pushed together right now in the studio and it makes a really good workspace. So I find tables being flexible helps out quite a bit. These are, you can like change the height of the table or if it's on wheels, it's a good table. Yeah. And that's what I like about plastic. It's super light to drag them out. Whatever. It's going to happen, JJ. You got your closet back and you're going to come fill it back up again. It's going to happen. This stuff really doesn't take long to dry. So I'm just going to hit it with a little bit of heat and start mixing resin. Those two tables I've got pushed together, one side of it. I've been doing most of my resin on and then the other side I've been doing the AIs on. However, I've been known to do AIs on both because I've got a big plastic, you know, drop cloth on top of both the tables together. So it makes it feel flexible for me. As long as the table top is not sticky, I can do AI wherever. Oh yeah, that's definitely a bonus, JJ. If you can pull up that table and move it out of the way. Looking good. Speaking of video or picture. If it's a video, it's probably posting it to some Facebook live group. And if it's a picture, he's probably promoting our photos. I want to get a budget to be captured. Oh, you were taking a selfie. Yeah. I love that. We're all going to look for that. Got it. It's all the way around. Oh, Anita says a turtle or a shrew on it. Ooh, both of them are great. On this? Yeah. Ew, I can't do either of those. Already dry. Aw, Dawn, thank you. She said my studio looks both functional and beautiful. It does. I'm just thinking about how not that mine is. Well, here's a true thing, Dawn. My husband also shares a little spot in my studio. And since Hubby said we could build it, kind of be nice to him, kind of keeping it clean. So, and I think he just realized how much I am restraining myself on just not just going with the whole art thing and stuff. So that's cool that he recognizes that. So, yeah.  Surprise, Jeff. And I'm like, nice to meet you, because she's nice to me. Which I am. You ever watched a positive couple from Russia? Positive couple from Russia? No. Maybe some good stuff. Who knows? And I'm speaking most extra things. Like, when you think there's no way they're going to do that. They do it. Like, cut every single one of these little squares. And then you sand it every single one. All four sides. And then both top and bottom. And he puts them all together. And then he puts resin on it. And then he does, like, they do, like, the most amazing stuff. And they have it in English and in Russian. My favorite piece. The stuff that you go, how do you come up with that? Like, this is gene material. Oh, yeah. They do some of the most amazing stuff. What's good in a fire sale? Everything. I'm going to add just a little bit of sparkle to this. This is actually body glitter. But it gives us a little bit of sparkle without, like, oh my god, it's glitter. No, actually, I think about the moment. Maybe. Let's try to do something. Like, Bowie? Bowie's always extra. I don't understand where my workplace is. What's good in the fire sale? What's, Doctor? So much. So much. The stack of the bradding from last night is over there by the pantry door. I'm going to give you a little bit of green lips on top. I don't know how much resin this is going to take. So I'm going to estimate it at... All right, guys. Give you a little preview. Let's see if I can hold these out.  And there's going to be a lot more. I'll do a preview video after this is over. Which, Doctor? As soon as this is over, I'll do a preview video. I'm just going to code in where they'll be good to go. What's up with y'all's bartering protocols? Can you give us a impairment? We will change the problem. Donna already wants the green one. Well, you're just going to have to show up, Don. The green one is... Jeff says it's one of the first ones he did. What do you think you're going to go for those little clusters? The hand-painted ones are 15. Hand-painted ones are 15? Yeah. Okay. The lip ones, our normal clusters are five dollars, but these are... A little extra special? Yeah, I think they take about 45 minutes to do each. That's about an hour. They're little pieces of artwork. What's Doctor says? Y'all mama... Oh, no, that's part of his name. Sorry. Gimme. Ah, I'm genius. There you go. Yeah, really? Okay. He just jumps in, face first, and then play. He just blends in with all the toys. Okay. So she's mixing resin. We know how exciting that is. Here's a few more. There's plenty more. Mixing resin is exciting for me, no one. I'm using art coat today for my resin, because it's going to be the most UV-resistant. That's correct. Thanks. Don says, but I want it. It's sold. Do you want a pre-sale? Jeff? Do a pre-sale? It is yours. You want them to email you about that, or you email them, or how you want to come. Yeah, shoot an email. We'll go ahead and put a sticky note on it and put it on the desk so that we don't resell it. So don't shoot them in the email or keep note of this in case you add to your list. So just so you guys can see where we're at right now, I'm going to give you guys close-up. Just a little bit of glitter. I don't want to move around too much. Of course, you'll assign it. Don, understood, Doris. No stress. Hi, pretty boy. Oh, you know it. So with Artcoat, you want to make sure you mix it fully and completely. This means about three minutes. Make sure you scrape the sides, the bottom, and your stir stick to make sure there's no weak spots. All right, minutes. Just breathe. It's okay. Don't stress. I'm not stressed.  It smells just like blueberry. This is what I'm showing. Look, it matches your little thing. Yeah, it does. It looks good, babe. When you show them your clutches, I've had a lot of people ask me about them. I kind of felt bad on Scarlett's life being because people were asking about pieces that hurt my whole life. You know what I mean? Like, I hated talking about our show while we were trying to help ourselves. But you're doing an ATV live for her to help her out. So I still think it's appropriate for them to ask.  But if you were on Jess Scarlett's channel, our show's tomorrow. I think it was fun. Don actually just got him some CBD. He's been on it for about a week and he hasn't had a seizure yet since I started giving him a CBD oil. Then again, he used to only have like two seizures a year. So once I get like seven months in without a seizure, then I'll be super pumped about it. So if you guys are interested in this resin, visit StoneCoatCounterTops.com for $10 off $100 order using the code YAL, Y-A-L-L, all caps, or you can get it from our website, artistledeth.com. It's our me putting Lincoln here. Right. I can't. These are a little bit more expensive, y'all. We just finished this one yesterday. I don't know if you guys can see that. I can't tell. Here. Excuse me. Oh, hey, I can see the camera. Passport holder, which I love. Good whistle. We need the whistles. He's actually a world class whistler. I think Bronson's going to buy this one. He bought. Let me show you guys one. It's so good. I actually took that CBD oil to Kujo's vet and was like, tell me that this is okay before I give it to him. So he did some research, and the particular one that I did get for Kujo is a good one. Apparently some of them, it's not really regulated what's in it. Okay. It's okay. That's the one that Bronson bought. I love this one. I think he's going to buy this one. And that's just my fingernail. What are the detail on those things? Okay. Vanna white hands. There you go. For the top. Then we got little cheap ones. I think I'll probably sell these for like 75. Depends on how many I make. Little passport holder. I think I showed this one. Maybe. Or you had another one? Yeah, Robin. As soon as I have my hands unsticky, I'll show you guys the kind that I got for Kujo. It's from VetCS. Looks like this. It is vet designed, vet driven, extract, 500 milligrams CBD. JJ says, Jeff, making dudes wish they were chicks with those questions. That's hysterical. But, I mean it's, my vet said that you have to be careful because you want to make sure what's in it. Exactly. Don't wear anything. George Stocker says don't. I just have to check her table before I put stuff. Check it because, I don't want to mark her that soon. I already put him back in your area. She was a good girl. He's right to check because I will forget and ruin it. Okay. We give kudos. Yeah. So the first color I'm adding is, Peruvian blue by color obsession. It's a tint. It's transparent. It's gorgeous. I lied. This is Bondi for sure. It's kind of aqua. Super beautiful. I'll go for it. I'm putting some clear just down. It was plugged up till about three minutes ago. I unplugged it to plug the laptop in. I wish doctors just rock that clutch all day. And this is really going to bring out the color in that pearlescent modeling, not paced cream. Since our boards are right angle boards, I can push it just to the edge. And as long as it's an eighth inch core, then I don't have to worry about it rolling over the sides and wasting resin due to the flow. I'm not going on the edge. I'll put like a super super thin coat. It gives it that varnish look like it's the wood finished. Even if it doesn't have any color on it. Yeah. But it's neat. But yeah, the dome look of it's also really pretty. Yeah, I'm a fan of the dome. I'm just working this aqua color into the clear that I put over here. And I'll probably still put some of the aqua in this area and mix more up. I only used four drops. No matter how much you use, it'll never be opaque. So the least you use, the lighter it will be and the more use the darker it'll be. But it'll never be opaque. So Alea, if you want to start making videos, let me just warn you for everybody, our first videos always suck. But you kind of got to get over the first parts.  But that's okay. You just keep going and you push through it. And it takes... Well, I'm not used to my voice yet. Jeff is still not used to his... Yeah. It's weird. I had somebody say, your voice is so soothing. And I looked up and I said, I'm like, I have a soothing voice. He goes, you have a mama voice. Ain't nobody's mama soothing. I guess you're right. I can see yours. Except for earth or trouble.  No one's ever like, hmm, you can fall asleep to that. I love my mom, but she... She... When she use her mom voice... No, coming back from that. Can't sleep through it. You've been trained to vape pinch. Oh, yeah. No doubt. So I'm going to use Jeff's resin turquoise. This is some of their tint that I don't... really ever use much of. JJ says he sounds like a 15 year old... Jeff's... Spakoli. Hate it, but it's me. Spakoli. So theirs has a little bit of a sheen in it. You're just kind of adding the resin to enhance the flow that I have in the piece already. But you can also break down your videos if your acrylic paintings take days to do. You know, you can break them down to different parts and release them in different stages if you want. Or even put the whole thing together and kind of create a time lapse. So there's a bunch of different options with that. Any time lapses? All the time. Yep. I like time lapses, especially the pieces that take a long time to do. This is Jeff's resin blue. I've got a lot of these things. I don't think I'm going to use most of them. I need to whip them out. No, I haven't. There's most of them. Can you tilt the camera down a little bit? I can do that. Just breathe, Miss. You know me and we know Jeff, is there any other questions? I don't know what I'm going to do with this. I don't think I did when she first met me. I don't think I did. It's okay, Miss. Jeff? It's not good. I don't know what I'm going to do with this, but I'm putting some bling it into here. Jeff listens to what he thinks. What's that? EDM. Yeah. Well, I'll listen to EDM. I'll listen to... What? What did I do? Huh? You said something wrong in here. I didn't say anything wrong in here. Well, you said babe. Like, I did it. Well, it was over there. So... I mixed up some of this, and I don't know what I'm going to do with this. Oh, just a heads up. This is kind of a funny thing to learn. I set up my camera one time to do a time-lapse of a piece. I think it was the last horse piece I did. And I hope he wanted to put on some music, and we ended up cracking it pretty loud in the studio. And when I started dumping all the videos onto my computer to edit and put them together and start messing with how to speed it up, the camera was vibrating to the music. And I was like, hmm. Uh-oh. But actually I started playing with how much it was sped up on the video. I don't know what you call that part of it, the time-lapse speed. And I actually found a sweet spot where you didn't see the vibration. So, just a heads up if you do set up your camera and you crank your tunes up, kind of keep your camera a little looking and see if it's vibrating at all. And if it is, you might either turn down the bass a little bit or just make sure it's in a secure hold. So. Make sure it's what? I have an old tripod that's not as stable as this with a secure hold. Oh. Is that what she said? I heard you say a secure hold. That's what she said. That is what she said. That is that. Hold. But I heard her say a secure hold. And I was like, wait. What time is it? Well, I don't think I've ever been in that one. She did the bass. Couldn't that be after dark already? Yeah. Could be. So I'm adding heat just to pop the bubbles? Yeah. That's what JJ just said. That's what she said. I want to leave my checks as I say coming out with hold and hold. Somewhere somewhere. Super similar. Scarlet was picking on me about my water. What? Water. And the more we say water, the stranger got it. Do I want to add some bling into this? Yes. I don't know how far it's going to travel. Just a little streamer, so I'm going to do. I love putting bling into water and just little ribbons of it. And then I run my finger through the ribbons just to disperse it just a little bit. And that helps it from going all over. It's got to sparkle to it all over right now. Yeah. I put some of my body glitter on it. Okay. I think you guys were talking first when I did that. Yeah. I've got a naughty filter too. Or I can throw the Inuit windows out pretty good. JJ. We have a good friend of ours. We call him affectionately Big Brian because we also have a child named Brian. And we get together and it's like Inuit windows party kind of back and forth. So Erica and Jeff would just sit back and go, okay, I'm just putting a big sign that says that's what she said. Whenever we're in the room, it would be that bad. It probably would happen.  Thanks. Fun fact, he has like 78 different lives and they all mean something different. Kate says, wow, this is super beautiful. Every time I work with Libby, I know it takes me back to the first story. Aw, thank you Libby.   Oh. Like, you don't have to break that quickly. Oh, because it makes me sweat all the time. I always get so anxious. I plant it out in my head. I'll do maybe three or four colors, maybe three most of the time. And inevitably, the third one always sets up. It's almost in the middle. It's taking a sweet time filling in. Yeah. Elias says her husband does a great joke or laugh, but not on command, only when he's enjoying some sort of chaos. That is an appropriate time to use a joke or laugh, though. Yes. Come on, put it on your arm. All right, JJ, what was it that she said? What did I miss? I missed one.  I thought you'd be another one. Every time going in. That one. Yep. For the East Coast, we'll have a dozen she's going to. Yeah. You should. That would be a problem. The East Coast a little bit more.  So, Libby, I have not done anything else to the mermaid. It's basically handed over into Erica's hands. However, I'm here to add the pressure. Then maybe we'll work on it this weekend. Yep. And do it maybe together. I sit back and watch her and add the pressure. I would love to. Her doing something in my work. That Betty Rubble lap. Is that? Yeah. You have a small Betty Rubble lap. Little giggle there. Here. All right, then. Take you guys on an adventure. Call it done. Finish. You all ready? Let's go on the other side. Hard to get back. It's so big. Oh, God. There's another one. Mm-hmm. Oh, you should hang out with Mike. It's a stone code. Oh, does he throw a lot of them out there? He throws them 24 hours a day. It has no clue what he says. Oh, that's even better. Yeah. Or is it just had? Because you can't really pick on them. Because he's so upset. Love this modeling cream, y'all. Thank you, Libby. Robbins is amazing, he. Doris is so gorgeous, he. JJ, a holy underwater warrior land back there. I nailed it. I need this. This is awesome, he. Claudia, that's my favorite piece too. Love it. And that's what Jeff said. It only took me two hours, 25 minutes. All right, you guys. This guy's getting too rowdy, so I need to take him out. Yeah, he's too rowdy. That one heard me. He's asleep. He really is. He needs to calm down, so. I really need to handle it. He's going to run into something if I don't address this soon. Leah says fantastic. Libby, you two on to hearts. Dawn says time will spin. Aw, thanks you guys. I will see you all tomorrow. Nope? No, tonight. Big fail. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what my name's about. I'll stay on tonight. See you guys. Big, big, big, big, big. We'll put a preview. Yep. Tonight at seven, I'll put a preview of all the artwork that we're going to be selling. Come here. Calm down. In ATDs for people. If someone could leave that, that would be amazing. This piece will be available tonight. Obviously, I won't be able to ship it for a little bit because it's got to have time to set up. But we'll see you guys tonight. 7 p.m. Central Standard, Dallas, Texas, United States time, which means 6 hours from right now. So we'll see you all later. Bye.