This study found that both men and women were deeply concerned about the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on their workplaces. Women reported higher levels of uncertainty regarding their employment situations due to the pandemic, as well as greater fears that their jobs would be negatively affected. These findings suggest that women may be more vulnerable to the economic and social consequences of the pandemic than men. This article was authored by Susanna Rubio Valdejita, Ana Maria Rodriguez-Lopez and Angelica Marine.


My name is Ed, or commonly known as Ed at MaxProp, I'm the CEO of MaxProp Digital and excited to talk to you today about the shift towards a digital mindset in technology and how to make money out of knowing a buyer or seller. So you would have heard the phrase data is the new oil and I'd like to just go through that and unpack it a little bit. So what is data? You know it's a phrase we hear a lot, but essentially it's information. It's information that broken down in a digital world is down to zeros and ones and it flows through everything we do, everything we say, everything that people do is essentially a form of information. So if you're walking down the street and there's a CCTV camera that's filming you and what you're doing, that's information and how you behave is information that can be used by whoever it's relevant to. So if you walk into a shop and one minute again walk out of it, that's information for that shop. Clearly you didn't stay very long. So data is like the new oil and the reason for that is you can make money out of data, but just like oil it needs to be refined. So you can't just take oil out of the ground and sell it. It's not going to work, no one's going to buy it, but once it's refined into petrol and put into a vehicle it certainly can be be sold and it can be used very efficiently and can make make a lot of money. So how do we refine it and how is it used? I think that's where the massive companies, technological companies around the world are busy working out ways on how to refine this data and if you think of companies like Facebook and Google those are the companies that are really doing it properly and however there's a lot of opportunities and that's what I'd like to talk to you about today is you sitting with some data which you can make money out of and I'll show you how to do that before the end of this presentation. So data in the property industry context, what is that data? What is that information and what can we do with it? How do we use it and how can you make money out of it? So knowing or being a buyer or seller is commonly known as the lead and at Maxwell Digital we've launched a program called the connector program where you'll be able to make money out of knowing a buyer or seller and before the end of this presentation I'll show you how to do that. So listing information, that's what you'll see on private property, that's the details of a property and when you start searching 80 to 90 percent of people will go into their browser probably Google and type in property or home to buy in whatever area you're looking in and the first portal to pop up will be private property and you will then start searching through the listings there and then contact the practitioner from there. So that's the listing information. The next step in the process is you would enter into a sale agreement and and purchase the property. That information then goes to a conveyancer and the conveyancing process starts and eventually when it transfers into your name that information then sits at the deeds office and there are companies that take that information from deeds office and they refine it just like the oil gets refined and then they set it as reports back to banks, back to real estate and then there's property management information. So sectional title schemes, homeowners associations, body corporates, there's a whole lot of information that is getting used there in terms of managing property and then there's the classic facilities management and property management that generates a huge amount of information and then a not so well known area of property called precinct management is a massive opportunity for data in the future. So precinct management is the management of a specific geographical area. It's generally involved in managing the security, cleaning and greening, placemaking and making that precinct more livable and then as a result the value of the property increases as you attract better tenants and better landlords. So there's a huge amount of information that that is getting generated other precincts and I think there's going to be big opportunities for big data in the space in the future. One of the precincts is as I started off with with CCTV you know there's going to be a lot of information that will be used there in the future on consumer behavior and maybe you know in terms of precinct certainly monitoring crime and and monitoring how people are behaving within a precinct and that will be very informative to companies going forward. And then APRs is an as an enabler so what is an APR? An APR is generally it's a connection between two digital systems. If you think of it like a a host path between a tap and another tap and the water flows through that's the data essentially flows through these connections and systems that have APRs are able to link up and that's what we're seeing in the digital world is a whole lot of systems that are busy linking up to create a bigger system and and flow the information and refine the data to a point that it can get used and be valuable to the end user. So at Microsoft Digital we've both what we call the digital office which has APRs and we are we are able to to connect to to any system going forward now and in the future and we're very excited around the potential that this presents in our business. So where's the end game you know we hear about artificial intelligence and robots robotics we have bots we talk about machine learning and let me take you through some of that so so where's the end game with all of this specifically with machine learning and with the data that's around specifically on social media there is a sense that that you could collect that data and start predicting how people would behave so for instance you could collect information or Facebook and be able to predict whether that person is getting ready to bar or to sell and these systems are are getting developed and so you're starting to qualify the lead before the lead even knows that they're ready so and then you know the next step to that sort of thinking is bots and machine learning you know you'd get contacted by what you wouldn't know whether it was a person or a machine I mean right now when you talk to someone on the phone do you know whether you're talking to a machine or a robot and quite honestly it's the lines are getting blurred you know they're making the the robots so human like and their responses and even to the point where they're empathizing with customers that very soon you're not going to be knowing if you're talking to a human on the other side of the line or whether it's a machine and as a machine with machine learning what machine learning is is it's essentially computers using algorithms that that learn from each other and an example would be um how someone responded to a question and not just how someone but maybe a thousand people responded to a question and the best answer for that and all the the computers could share that knowledge with with each other so um quite a quite an interesting topic and I could go on a long time about that um and while practitioners will be involved in the process transaction for a long time so yes there's all this technology there's what I've been speaking about machine learning and robotics but at the end of the day property is an emotional bar it's something that is not done very frequently maybe just a couple of times in a lifetime and as a result people want to deal with people in the transaction and so that's why I believe property practitioners are going to be involved in the transaction for a very very long time at some point in the distant future maybe maybe not but certainly in my lifetime I think property practitioners are going to play a crucial role and and the reason for that is that uh people want to deal with people when they need to trust the process and and that's what we've done as well with MaxProc Digital as we build tools to enable the practitioners to deliver a very good high quality service to clients um and be able to enable them to do their job which is which is help people through a very what can be a very scary process of buying or selling their property so how do you make money out of your data well we're very excited to launch the connector program at this virtual property show and what is the connector program well it's simply do you know a buyer or a seller of property in your network or their friend or or even family and what you can do is you can go onto our our website at MaxProc.digital.com and you can register yourself for free and register your buyer or your seller we will then very far that the order buyer or seller and that you have referred them we then uh work with a buyer and seller and if we're able to conclude a transaction we will then pay you a fee so you simply have to have to log on full out the the necessary information we verify it we do the rest of the work and then once we've concluded a transaction uh your phone goes pinging and money goes into your bank account so if that's something that interests you please go onto our web page and find out more and that's essentially a way of you monetizing your data so that's information that you hold you know a buyer or a seller that's data and it's worth money it's information that that's certainly we want to to assist you with and and assist the buyers and sellers with thank you very much it's been a great pleasure to talk to you this morning I hope you found the talk interesting and I look forward to engaging with you during question time thank you


In this video, I want to explain to you why Jeff Bezos and Amazon are dominating e-com and why is it that everybody else in the space seems like they're not dominating or like they're just like second tier, like why is Amazon always coming out on top? Okay, so let me explain to you or like let me show you this book that I would recommend to you. Okay, this is called The Everything Store right here. So it's basically written by Brad Stone and basically it's like it's not a biography of Bezos, but I think you can learn a lot of things from business and especially in the e-com space where hey, this guy started from nothing, right? He's like, obviously he came from hedge fund, has engineering background, you know, very very smart guy, but with the same principles of long term thinking, customer satisfaction and stuff, that is why he's a richest person in the world and that is why he's also dominating e-com. Okay, so like one other thing that we can learn from this guy because like everything he does is public, right? So why is it that people are successful in a ton of other people are not, right? So these are the things that basically learn from this book, okay? So basically the guy is just ruthless, okay? And ruthless in the sense that he is very very, if he sees a competitor like he will just take a knife and you just crush and kill them, okay? And then he takes that aggression and stuff to customer satisfaction as well. So he's very very specific and he really really hones in on like and showing that the customer experience is top notch all the time, is A1 all the time, okay? And these are like the three principles that basically in the book, right? They say it's like, it's what he obsesses over about, okay? So it's about fast shipping times, okay? It's about seamless customer experience, okay? And everyday low prices, okay? So when Bezos, he was thinking about it, right? What do people want from his store, for example, okay? He wants everybody to have a very very good customer experience by shopping at Amazon from having fast shipping times, right?  So you have a positive connotation of the store, Amazon, right? Number two, seamless customer experience, okay? He always says that you actually don't want to be talking to anybody from the team, right? Have you ever shot on Amazon and asked a question before? You probably have not because their systems are so good, right? The fact that they're so good is because you don't even need to need their help, right? The software does everything. The store does everything you need already, okay? So there's never an issue with the brand and the company itself, right?  So that's number two. And number three, it's everyday low prices. So how does Bezos achieve low prices, right? Okay, to be fair, he has tremendous economies of scale, okay? But even though when they were burning cash at a time, right? They were taking the minimal savings that they can get from every part of the other business and back into passing savings to the customer, okay? And by passing savings to the customer, right? That would basically incentivize them, incentivize people to keep buying from them as well, okay? So like I said before, fast shipping times, seamless customer experience, past savings to the customer, okay? Very important fundamental e-commerce principles, but I think we can learn from as well. And then basically, heavily investing, reinvesting to improve everything. Customer, software, efficiency, people, productivity, okay? So think about these things for yourself and hopefully this is helpful to you, okay?


Well I've been doing philosophy now for two years so and I think it's opened up my mind to a lot of new concepts that you don't learn in any other subjects and it really the way you discuss and innovate new ideas and It it helps you in a lot of other subjects as well and other a lot of other aspects in life, I guess so in here in philosophy you're able to think differently and think outside the box and Just express your own ideas and a place where Nothing's wrong, and you always have the chance to justify and learn new theories and able to express that through your own ways and it really helps with a lot of other parts of schoolwork any really aspects of life and I think that's the most important part of philosophy. It just it helps with everything else It's a way to innovate. That's what we need in the world We need people to innovate new ideas and deeper thinking and yeah I think that's the most important part of philosophy for myself here. We have to justify so much We have to justify everything so in a lot of subjects where there's a lot of writing like English and biology it it enables you to write concisely and speak concisely and to the point and Express your ideas in a clear way because when you're in a discussion you can't sit there and elaborate and Make it all long and strong out. You have to be concise Which is a lot of which is what people want in school They want everything to be concise and to the point and that's what it helps with the most Because I think the logic unit we did previously that that really helped me a lot, you know, it really gets you to do really gets you to think deeply it's not like any other class that you're You do in the school It really does get you to think and it does require a lot of a lot of focus and attention to um be able to you know succeed and because it's making you think a lot about about all sorts of challenging ideas where people can easily they can come in and they can contest your ideas, which is um which is great because sometimes it's better because You know, otherwise in the world, you're just ignorant of and you're just your belief is your belief There's a philosophy Everyone can just contribute and it can help your understanding of life and meaning of different things and it's um Yeah, it's just a great. It's just a great way to um to open your mind up really because philosophy is just giving you that ability to just Look at what they're saying and just absolutely, you know You could you feel as though you could get up on stage and just completely shut them down because you have that knowledge philosophy Helps me to think because when you're talking to other people and they have different points of views You have to recognize their point of view and you also have to try to understand where they're coming from And it also helps me to question my point of view as well because if they're saying all these things that you haven't actually considered in your brain it kind of triggers a response from you and It just allows me to think more broadly. We're taught different things. So I believe Different things to you. So my point of view could be very narrowed and one-minded and so then when you tell me yours It I have to expand my Horizon horizon really I'm currently doing a novel study in English and we're looking at the app Originals and how we came onto their land and it just makes you think makes you reconsider how much of you where the bloodshed was and how much death and Massacre happened and how it was for our profit and how everything that we have done to them And we need to recognize all that and how they have Blittled they would feel and so it really comes to help me Just like think more broadly about the aboriginals and consider their perspective Helped me to perceive others viewpoints better It's Because I'm not very good at that because I have autism spectrum disorder, which makes it difficult to Empathize with other people I've discovered such things as the different Beliefs on where The sense of person of self resides like what makes me me I've learnt About other people's viewpoints of where our metaphysics and like how the universe thing I've learned about Things like the allegory of the cave It's it's inspired philosophy has taught me to think critically, which is a great skill and explain and be able to refute my own viewpoint to provide to identify ways in which my Viewpoint or beliefs might be inaccurate and how to reflect and improve my beliefs to Correct those those inaccuracies


Good evening. I'm thinking about how to start. You know, when I was a kid, I used to stammer quite a bit. I used to stammer, I used to stutter, I used to trail off mid-sentence. And as a result, I was very shy. I was very reserved. I used to stay more indoors than outdoors. And I had this fear that, you know, words would form at the back of my head, but I would not be able to express myself fully. Those of you giving me sympathetic looks, I had a very happy childhood. It's just that I was more indoors than outdoors and spent more time in the company of books, but not reading math or science, otherwise I'd have been somewhere else. You know, like somewhere else. But I was more into stories. And with a view to help me overcome my speech disability, my mom, you know, at some point of time enrolled me into speech therapy and illocution and debate and drama and poetry recitation and extracurricular activities, essentially comprehensive damage control strategy. And I hated her back then, but I'm very grateful to her now. All of these things helped me quite a bit, especially speech therapy and theater. And I fell in love with theater. And the more and more I did, the more I wanted to do more work with theater. But you know, when you grow up in middle class India and you're raised by a single parent, who's a teacher and you know, so I'm saying that because most of you would know teacher salaries, then you don't choose a career in theater. You maximize your revenue potential and do business administration or IT or something like that. But I never lost touch with theater. So I did business administration, worked in advertising and marketing and consulting, but I had a track going on in theater and poetry and cinema and photography, all forms of narrative. But in advertising also, our in marketing, our in consulting, the work that I was doing was also working with narratives. So that's what I've done for a large part of my life. And working with stories, I could see that stories are powerful, but we don't leverage them as much as we can in our everyday work, in our everyday lives. And I wanted to explore how we could help teachers become better storytellers so that they could teach in classrooms using stories and how to work with leaders and help them become better storytellers. Because I've always believed that great stories happen to those who can tell them and no matter what business we are in, we are all in the business of storytelling. The moment we are in business, we are in the business of storytelling. And a lot of times, here's what happens. The work that we do is up here, but the story that we tell of our work is here. And to me, good storytelling is about bridging the gap between the two. We're creating it here, but just bridging the gap between the two. So that our story is authentic and so that it is an alignment and therefore the perception of our work is an alignment with the reality of our work. And when that doesn't happen, it's a disservice to the work that we all do. So that's just to set context, but I'm going to start this with...  Now, workshop basically means that you guys do some work. So we're all going to do some work. I'm trying to go and do this in a manner in which I can pass on some of the storytelling chops to all of you. And I stand here before you not as an expert in storytelling, but as a student of storytelling. The more and more I learn about storytelling, I have figured that a lifetime is not enough to learn it. And I'm just an elementary grade student of stories.  So I stand here before you in that spirit. Let's start off with a game, a quiz. You must have seen a TV show called Who Wants to be a Millionaire? The Indian version of that is called Kon Banega Karot Patri. So we'll play a quiz round. The fastest finger's first version. So I'm going to put up a question here. If you know the answer, raise your hand immediately. But the way to do this, my friend, is not to bluff and not to raise your hand to impress everyone. Because I promise you if you raise your hand, I'll call you on stage to answer the question. So raise your hand if you know the answers. And let's dive into this. But please don't help each other. No talking, no helping each other, no cuspus. So can we start? Okay, here's the first question coming your way. How many of you can come up on stage and explain the Pythagoras theorem now? Please raise your hand. The Pythagoras theorem. Seriously, are we at the Selenium conference? These are all IT professionals? Okay, like I said, no cuspus. Does it sound familiar when I say the Pythagoras theorem? Does it sound familiar? All right. Like Shah Rukh Khan says sometimes in his movies, Rahul, naam to suna hoga. Pythagoras, naam to suna. Does it sound familiar? Okay, let's do another one quickly. How many of you can come up and explain the Archimedes principle? Archimedes? Does it sound familiar? The Archimedes principle? No? All right. Okay, let's move forward very quickly. This is pretty embarrassing so we'll go. I'm not looking. How many of you can come up and explain gravity? Gravity? Gravity? All right, let's change this. I don't think this is going somewhere, anywhere. So let's do this. Do you guys believe in magic? That's what you guys do, right? You do magic. How can we not believe in magic? So do you guys believe in magic? Yeah? Okay. What if there was a magic wand and if somebody just waved that and all the answers came rushing back to us? Well, it seems that's possible. All you have to do is just shake your shoulders. So just go along with me. Shake your shoulders a bit. Yeah, give them a good shake. Yeah? All right. So let's do this all over again and hopefully we'll land in a better place. Hopefully. How many of you remember the hair and the tortoise? The hair and the tortoise? I feel really sad for you. Neither Pythagoras nor the hair and the tortoise. Sir, blue shirt. Raise your hand very quickly. Correct the damage. Hair and the tortoise. Of course you know it. The thirsty crow. The monkey and the capsular. Yeah? What have we just learnt through this simple exercise? That we remember stories.  We forget facts. We forget data. But we remember stories.   So we need to make our work. We are in the service of our work. We need to make it memorable. If you need net promoter score, if you need word of mouth, if you want people to come knocking at your door and say, hey, here's a specialized skill. I would love to work with this guy. I would love to work with this team, this organization, this business. Then people need to refer you. And they will be able to refer you only if you leave a story then. Come to think of it, even the concepts that I just spoke about, I'm sure you remember some stories there. You may not be able to explain gravity, but you remember a story about a man sitting under a tree and an apple falling on his head. And you may, some of you may not yet remember the Archimedes principle, but you all remember a guy who filled water in the bathtub and when he sat down, a certain amount of water spilled out. And he looked at that water and his body. And when he got the connection between the two, he ran down the street naked saying, Eureka! Eureka! Now you've got it. I knew it. When I say the naked man, you will get it.  The such an interesting idea that you take a very light object like a safety pin and you put it in water and sinks. But a heavier object floats and the entire idea of buoyancy, right? So even here, we remember the stories. That's how powerful stories are. Now that we've learned that through a simple experiment that, you know, stories embed content in memory, how are you going to use that to talk about your work, to talk about the products, solutions or services that you offer to build your personal brand in an authentic way? Now I'd like to move forward and get into this, precisely this, but I know some of you are still not with me because some of you are still thinking, all right, we've got a story for gravity and we've also got a story for Archimedes. What about Pythagoras? I still haven't cracked that in my mind. So let's quickly get that out of the way and then move forward. Like I said, this is a workshop, so I'd like all of us to do some work. If in order to learn stories, the best way to do that is to tell and receive stories. So I'd like all of you here quickly to get into a pair. The best way to do that is to look right or left and turn to that person and say, you are my partner for this exercise and no trials, no trials, only pairs. So you've got five seconds to do that. Can you quickly pair up with someone and sit close to that person? Five, four, three, two, one. Now can I brief you on this exercise? Who's single? Please raise your hand. Now don't get ambitious here, please. That's not what we are doing. It's just a story exercise. Now here's what we're going to do. I'd like you to share a story with your partner and receive a story from your partner. Let's get started. Should we work with a business story? Should we work with a personal story? Do you think there's room for personal stories at work? Why? Well, trust. We work not just for organizations. We work for people, which is why when great bosses quit, we feel like following them no matter where we go. We don't just work with vendor organizations. We work with the person who services our business and that person quits the vendor organization, joins another organization. Sometimes we give business to that guy. Leadership is autobiographical completely, which is why even in 100-year-old organizations like GE, when Jack Welch quits and Jeff Immels joins, everything changes. At some level, culture is very strong. It should not change, but lot changes. So the personal story is very important. So let's then get started by sharing a personal story with our story partner and receiving a personal story. And if that seems like wide open, let me narrow it down for you.   But if you grew up in Indore, don't just say, I grew up in Indore. It doesn't sound like a story. So bring a live Indore for your partner. But don't do tourism advertising because that's what it is. So let me explain this. If there are two of you, both of you grew up in Indore, your experience of that place is very different from your experience of that place. So bring the personal into the story. And some of you may have grown up in different places and that may have shaped you. So when I say the gift of the place you grew up in, what I mean by that is, how has that place shaped you in being and becoming who you have become today? Let's talk about the gift of the place. For example, I grew up in a place which was so small by Indian standards that there were only 5,000 people in that place. And I was there for 21 years. I was born in a Gram Panchayat hospital.  Just 5,000 people. And I was there for 21 years. Now when you grow up in a place like that, everyone knows everyone, which is not a great idea. Because when you get into trouble at school, parents don't have to wait till PTA. They get to know the same evening. When you start growing older, you hold someone's hand and walk and everyone gets to know. So I grew up in a place like that. The gift of that place for me is that, no matter where I go, I feel I've been infected with this lifelong virus, the need to make a personal connection with people. And even if I'm sitting on a plane, I turn right to the person who's sitting next to me and start talking to them. So that's the gift of the place for me. Similarly, talk about your parents. Talk about the inheritance. Don't talk about their job descriptions like my father was a banker, my mother a homemaker. Talk about the inheritance. There's a lot of friction in that relationship. There's also gifts, values, traditions being passed on. So what's your net inheritance? Talk about that. Third, talk about what are you a student of? You know, you could be a student of technology, of testing, of management, of human behavior, of dance or music. But what is it that you study lifelong? Of photography? Talk about that. What are you a student of? And bring that story to a close by saying, why you do what you do today. Now before you start off, there are three very, very clear instructions. Number one, I'd like you to turn towards your partner. So can you all turn towards your partner? Thank you. Now, here's the second instruction. I'd like you to figure out... Yeah. I'd like you to figure out what your partner's story is anchored in. So when you're listening, try to see if it's possible your partner's story is anchored in A or B or C or D. But it would be all of them. When I say anchored in, what's significant for them? What's more important for them? Try to make a mental note and see.  You know, the eyes may light up.  Body language may, you know, the shoulders may form up with pride. So make a mental note. Here's the last instruction. We live in a world where people have less and less time to listen to each other's stories. Have you heard of elevator pitches? We are trying to, we are going to do this in an elevator pitch style.  Now the way to do this, 90 seconds for you and 90 seconds for you. Yeah. So the way to do this is don't treat this like a competition or a race. If you finish in 90 seconds, don't give each other high fives. You haven't won a race. And if you're not able to finish in 90 seconds, that's also fine. Let's just give it a shot. Let's just try. So the spirit in which we're going to do this is, I may not have done this before, but let me give it a shot. I'll keep time and I'll pace you. So you start when you hear me clap and I'll give you a heads up at 70 seconds. I'll say, guys, 20 seconds left. I'll give you another heads up at 80 seconds, guys, 10 seconds left at 90. When I ask you to stop, please stop irrespective of whether you finished or not. You start when you hear me clap. I hope you've decided who's going first. Please start. 20 seconds left. 10 seconds left. Please stop. All right. Let's switch roles so the teller becomes listener. Listener becomes teller and you start when you hear me clap. 10. Please stop. All right. Now here's, stay with me.  Just pair up with someone else and wait for my instruction. We are not doing the same thing again. We're doing something similar. So just change your partner. Find a new partner to work with. Five seconds. You've got to do this. Five, four, three, two. All right. Everyone's found a new partner. Anyone single? No, don't get ambitious. Meet me later. Okay. Here's what we're doing now. We are doing the same thing, but slightly different. So what you're going to do is the brief remains the same. You've got to share your story with the new person that you're paired up with and see if you know you could figure what their story is anchored in. Make a mental note about that. But here's what we are changing. You've got 30 seconds less now. So you've got 60 seconds to tell the story. Feel free to use any strategy that comes to your mind in order to do this in the lesser time provided to you. However, there's one thing you cannot do. You cannot go like a bullet train. Blah, blah, blah, blah. You take ownership of your story. It's your story. Think of it like an expensive crystal glass. If you throw it at the other person, it's likely to break. So take ownership of your story. Also take ownership of the listener. It's not about you finishing the story. It's about them getting the message. So take ownership of the listener, but you've got 60 seconds. Here's what I'll do. I will pace you. I'll give you a heads up at 45 seconds. I'll say, guys, 15 seconds left. I'll give you another heads up at 55 seconds. I'll say, guys, 5 seconds left so that you can wrap up your story and you start when you hear me clap, which is now. 15 seconds left. 5. Please stop. We switch roles and the teller becomes listener. The listener becomes teller. You start when you hear me clap. 15 seconds left. 5. Please stop. All right. You know, we've just done something twice over with different partners and more importantly with different time slots assigned to you. What are your quick thoughts and observations on what you've just done? I'd just like to hear from one or two. Yes, ma'am. Second time was better and faster and you were able to pace. You were able to structure it better. I see a lot of heads nodding. So I'm assuming that it would be similar for many of you, sir. And constraints are really powerful. And you all became editors the second time round. You edited that which was less important and focused on that which was more important. I saw, apart from this, having done this many times over, I'm sure our individual experiences of this exercise are unique and different. But what I have found common for many people are these three or four things. Number one, many of you could not finish your story in 90 seconds, but you were able to do that in 60 seconds. And some of you with a few seconds to spare its second time round. Is that true? Yeah. The second thing that I saw is that a lot of you, in your second time round, were answering questions. You were actually looking at the screen.  Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. The second time round, you weren't doing that. You knew what was to be said. And you were familiar. And therefore, you were looking into the listener's eyes and telling the story as it should be told. And it was coming together less like bullet points and more organically fusing, just about fusing like a coming together, just like a story. The third thing I saw is that many of you, you had a unique Indian expression of regret, which goes something like, after the first time. And, you know, basically that means that, oh my God, I spent too much time on the first two, but I didn't get enough time for the last two. But you corrected for that the second time round. And what that basically means is that, you know, and the fourth thing that you did was, of course, that you edited out the less important stuff. You know, I will be surprised to, you know, I am surprised even today. We started Story Valar six years ago. We get called in for a lot of high stakes presentations.  A lot of times, and we charge a decent fee, a lot of times what we do to make presentations better is just edit and remove the unnecessary. And stories become better. Now, you must have felt after a presentation, a keynote, or sometimes after an interview, actually always after an interview, that if I got a second chance, I could do this much better. But what have you just learned from this exercise? That the audience actually deserves the second version of the story. They are giving you time. And if the second version of the story is better, then that's the version of the story that you should tell the first time round. So there's no trick to better storytelling. The trick is hard work and practice. If you ask me what makes a better chef more time in the kitchen? What makes a better storyteller a better storyteller? There's nothing like a natural storyteller. It's a big myth. Have you heard that phrase? Storytelling comes naturally to this guy. It's a big myth. We are all born crying. And for two years, we all struggle to speak. So what does it mean when you say a natural storyteller? It's as big a myth as the other thing that we've all heard. Born leader. Have you heard that? Born leader? Think about it for a minute. What does that even mean? Somebody comes out of the mother's womb and says, where's my team? What's a born leader? You learn leadership as you... Maybe you were a class monitor, grade fourth, and you had to report a friend, your dearest friend, and you had to choose between duty and friendship. And maybe you were a cricket captain, grade seventh, and you gave the ball for bowling, not to your best friend, but to that irritating guy, because that was aligned to the overall objective. And you explained and you communicated that goal, and you built alignment towards that. That's how you learn leadership. Nobody's born leader. Similarly, you learn storytelling through practice. And the audience, my big takeaway from this is, you know, audience deserves the better version of the story, the second, third version of the story. And so we need to put in that hard work. The best orators in the world, they put in that kind of hard work. The second thing I asked you to do is to figure out what your partner's stories were anchored in. Could you figure that out? What was important for them in their stories? Could you figure that out? Now, it's possible that for many of you, you could get a sense of what was important for them in 60 seconds or 90, just by listening, by doing focused listening. And in the world of storytelling, oratory is overrated, but listening is underrated. And it's listening that makes a better storyteller. It's listening that makes a better leader, even a better spouse or partner. You're laughing. I know I can feel your pain. But it's listening, you know. It's when we listen that we know, you know, which story to tell to someone else. And I've been listening not just in the oral sense, but in the metaphorical sense of listening, which is researching the audience, doing the hard work, preparing for that. So if you're getting into a call, and I know that many of you work at organizations where you get into calls, you don't do face-to-face presentations.  And if you're presenting to Tom and Martha and Stewart, have you actually found out, you know, how old is Tom? Where is Martha from? And what matters to Stewart? What do they look like? Most of you don't, you know, so many times I've gotten into calls where I ask people, you know, how old is Stewart? And people have no idea and say, how can you be presented to somebody where you don't know how old that person is, what he looks like. I'm just using this symbolically to say that you haven't researched your audience. And that's what I mean by the larger metaphorical idea of listening. And the third big takeaway from here is that if you could tell your story, there's no engineering product that is more complex than you. If you can tell your life story in 90 seconds, how difficult is the work story? Think about it.  So elevator pitches are not that difficult. We just have to think what is the core message and then adapt to different environments. And the idea is not to tell it very quickly, but the idea is not to put everything up there in your story and bombard people with it. Rather excite people to a point where they ask you a question. And when they ask you the question, you'll be ready with the details. But don't dump the details on people. Don't start with that. And that's the key difference to good storytelling. And all good storytellers do that.  And I will show them to you that they are not natural storytellers. They all put in hard work and practice. What are the names that come to your mind? All right, Steve Jobs. Let's work with that. Let's work with Steve Jobs. Let me show you how much hard work Steve Jobs puts in. I didn't plan these guys who said Steve Jobs. I promise you. But Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Satya Nadella, Azim Premji in India, Nanda Nilankini, fantastic data storyteller. Look at them. They all put in a lot of hard work. Let me show you the hard work. This is an extract from the launch of MacBook Air, the thinnest and the lightest laptop in the world at the time of the launch. He spoke for about an hour at that conference. This is 60 seconds long clip.  Let's take a look at this. Kind of notebook. It's called the MacBook Air. That's what he is launching, the MacBook Air. Look at how relaxed he is. Look at the way he uses his hands to chop to emphasize the way... You know, he's so relaxed right now.  He should have 6,000 butterflies in his stomach. Not because he's on stage. He's talking about stage fright and presentation skills here. I am talking about what's at stake. What's at stake? Three years of R&D, millions of dollars in investment, hundreds of thousands of banners gone into developing a product. If this product launch fails, all of that goes down the drain, right? That's at stake. For a company that makes 6 or 7 products where every product goes on to contribute potentially 12 to 15 percent of revenues. That's at stake 12 to 15 percent. He should be nervous. But he's not. And that kind of confidence comes from only two places. Confidence in the product and confidence and that comes from practice and rehearsal. So over the next 45 seconds of this clip, I'll show you the amount of rehearsal that has gone into this. It's called the MacBook Air. It's so thin, it even fits inside. He just used an adjective here. Adjectives are words we use to describe things like tall, short, heavy, light. What's the adjective he used just now? Fin. That's an interesting one. Have you seen laptops on laptop comparison sites? Like two laptops and you compare them for weight, processing power, capacity, other things. Now this feature that you see here, this feature is called the thickness, right? And so far the industry had referred to this feature as thickness. Now if this is 5 mm thick, I can call this 5 mm thick or 5 mm thin. 5 mm will remain 5 mm. It doesn't change. But when I choose to call it thin, which is the first guy referring to this feature as thin, not thick, you are defining the frame of reference for the audience and how the audience should look at it. You're not leaving that to chance. You're differentiating the language from the competitors and saying let me guide you how you should look at this 5 mm. That's one of the big takeaways that you can make a note of which is are you controlling the frame of reference when you are talking to audience? You may be talking about the same thing as somebody else but how are you making them look at it? Thick or thin? Safe or unsafe? Fast or slow? These are all choices. Now I can describe something as fast as slow as secure or less secure. These are all options. So how do you talk about what we are presenting? That's a choice that we make. He made that choice. He was defining that for the audience. It's so thin it even fits inside one of these envelopes that we've all seen floating around the office. Really? Did you just hear what he said? He said it's so thin that it fits into an envelope that you may have seen float around the office. Has that ever happened in your office? Envelopes don't float around the office because they have ghosts in office. How would you say this? We've all learnt English. If you were to say this like a normal man speaks English, how would you say this? It's so thin that it can even fit into an envelope that you may have seen lying around an office. But he's not saying lying around the office. He's saying float around the office. Why? What's he launching? Is it syncing in what I'm trying to show you 19 seconds into a 60 second clip from a 60 minute speech. Every word he's saying here is deliberate. It's choreographed. He's leaving no stone unturned. He's saying I will never get a second chance for first impression. This is my opportunity to launch this product. I must max it. It looks extreme poor. Because it has been crafted to that level where it looks extreme poor. But it is not. So he's working hard. It's so thin it even fits inside one of these envelopes that we've all seen floating around the office. Now if you made the thinnest laptop in the world essentially you've broken a world record. If earlier the record for thickness was 5mm you have possibly made the world's first 4.678mm laptop. That's what you've done. He should be going to town saying this is the world's first 4.678mm laptop. Why isn't he doing that? Why isn't he throwing the number at people? Because he's figured out, just like we all figured out that people don't remember Pythagoras, Archimedes and 4.678mm. You have to give it to them in terms that people will remember. So if you were at that launch and after the launch you met a friend at a pub and a friend would ask you where were you? You would say I was at the launch of the thinnest laptop. His next question would be how thin? And you wouldn't remember 4.678mm but you would say as thin as, now that's a powerful device as dash as simile metaphor analogy. A storyteller's best friend is Sam simile analogy metaphor that's what people remember. So wrap your fact in a hook that embeds it in people's memory so that people talk about it. So when you say as secure as what? As fast as what? Wrap that fact in a hook so that we make it easier for people to remember as fast, as cheap, as efficient as secure as whatever your as is. Make it easy for people to remember that. Let's go further. And so let me go ahead and show it to you now. You see now he's playing with the audience he says let me go ahead and show it to you but he's not showing it to them. What's he doing? He's building anticipation. Do you build anticipation before you give away the solution? Why is anticipation important? Because when you build anticipation you are making the thing that's going to come out of the envelope more valuable for people. Now you worked hard on the solution. You worked hard to get your product service solution to this place. Are you just going to give it away like that? Or are you going to build anticipation and make people value what you do? It's a very key technique in storytelling. And the best tech presenters do that. They build anticipation towards what they're going to reveal to people. It doesn't have to be a new product. It could be a simple solution. It could be a fix. It could be a patch. It could be an update. Let me take it out here. Now you see something is very interesting is going to happen now. He is holding the laptop at his belly level. In front of his belly. He's going to take the laptop out of the envelope. There's no way you can hear the laptop coming out of the envelope. Actually you are going to hear that sound. You'll hear the sound of the laptop coming out of the envelope. How's that possible? He's wearing a collar mic like I am wearing one. If I snap my fingers you can hear it through the mic. If I snap my fingers here you won't be able to hear it through the mic. You'll hear it through the air here. You feel the difference? How is it that you can hear the sound of a laptop coming out of the envelope? They put another mic there. And that's to accentuate that mic there and that sound sort of works. This is the ribbon-cutting moment. Now it's going to come out. So he wants people to... he wants to drop and people to go and he's extracting that. This sound works just like canned laughter in comedy shows. That's how it works. You'll hear that sound. It comes out. Let me take it out here. This is the new MacBook Air and you can get a feel for how thin it is. Did you see what he's just done? In five seconds he takes the laptop out and pulls it up on three or four fingers like you've never held a laptop before. And that's the moment it could have fallen from his hands and that clip would have gone viral on YouTube, on social media. Let's see what happened at the launch. But that doesn't happen. And the reason it doesn't happen is because he has practiced that move a hundred times because he's figured that's the best angle to showcase how thin it is. That's the amount of rehearsal he was putting in to his storytelling. How much hard work do you put into your storytelling? Now he believed that I owed to my R&D guys, to my testing guys, to my product developers and designers that I go out and tell a fantastic story. The worst takeaway that we can take away from here is that he had a lot of time and nothing else to do but tell stories. Around this time they were fighting 50 patent wars with Samsung. Six weeks ago you read the newspapers. The courts ordered Samsung to pay millions of dollars too. So they were fighting that battle. Around this time trouble had broken out in a factory called Foxconn in China and a negative PR was spreading around the world and he was fighting that PR disaster. And around this time now we know doctors had broken news to him about his health. And in the middle of this this guy goes and puts so much work into storytelling. Why? Because he believed that you know that my customers who are buying products from me they take pride in these products. I owe it to them that I tell a fantastic story so you owe it not just to your customers and other organizations. More importantly I say you owe it to yourself because you spend one hour with your kid in the morning and one hour with your spouse. We spend our entire day doing what we do. We owe to ourselves that we tell a fantastic story about the work we do. And the best way to get there is to use some of these techniques. So that's all that I wanted to share with you that storytelling is not science, is not tricks, it's not techniques, it's putting in the hard work, recognizing that the audience deserves that more importantly when we put in our blood and sweat into doing what we do then we might as well tell a fantastic story about it. Now a lot of work that you do also deals with numbers and data and some people think numbers are numbers and stories are stories and they are like chalk and cheese which is really far from the truth because the best business stories are built on the foundations of data. So how to weave numbers into narrative? Well it's very simple we'll figure that out that it's not what you say but how you say that makes all the difference. So I'll just share a simple case study with you and you tell me and that's one big principle on data storytelling. It's not what you say but how you say that makes the difference.  It's a very wide term that includes stalking, flashing, eve teasing, cat calling to the most extreme violent behavior that one can assume. If you've grown up in India, you would know that the actual number should be higher than that but whatever 30% is the number that they found. They wanted to socialize the number, take it to CEOs HR heads so that they could make companies safer places for women. To mayors and corporators so they could make cities safer places for women. They wanted to take it to media to consumers to talk about it.  Which one would you choose? A, B or C if most of you have chosen C it's a much better way but you see factually they are all right they are all the same why do you choose C then? because C makes an emotional impact here so when you work with numbers that's what I meant it's not just what you say but how you say it so somebody may give you the numbers but are you working with that and saying how do I present this so that it makes an impact when you go through that you've gone through a storyteller's journey now with the one of the best data storytellers that I have seen in India and one of the best in the world is Nandan Nillakini and if you want to see a good example of data storytelling you should just look at a YouTube video where he talks about financial markets disruption so the keywords if you search is Nandan Nillakini of course and financial markets disruption it's a 30 minute video he's throwing numbers and numbers at you but he's weaving all of that into a single narrative look at that video and don't look at it just to be awed by his presentation style but see how he weaves data into narrative and when you spend two minutes reflecting after that that's all you need to do in order to become a better data storyteller but that's not how we told the story for Amnesty International so I'd just like to leave you with two large very big principles to add on over and above what we just did the next principle is that you know when you work with numbers and I showed you that 30% 3 out of 10 and 1 out of 3 they're all the same one makes more impact sometimes what makes more impact is choosing between working with percentages or absolutes in this case we work with the absolute so 1.3 billion half of them are women 30% of them it's a large number 200 million, 250 million whatever that is do the math in your head now that number if I say 250 million doesn't really come alive for people unless I compare it with something so what should you compare it and comparison is one of the most powerful principles of data storytelling your numbers don't come alive unless you compare just give you a simple example if I say a farmer's income is 6,720 rupees now you just replace this farmer's income with you know tests that you run with variables the errors that you are whatever you know number you are presenting it doesn't come alive till you compare it with something in this case the farmer's salary is 6,720 bucks does it make sense high low you don't know what if I told you that the the bus conductor in a BMTC bus makes 22,750 every month but the farmer's income is 6,750 so without comparison numbers don't come alive so whatever numbers you are working with compare now going back to the amnesty international example we said 250 million or 300 million if that's the number of women who face sexual harassment in India what you compare it with is important so you 300 million is close to the population of US so we just reframe the story and if you reframe the story here's what it sounds like every individual living in the united states of America today a child who is 6 months old able bodied or disabled black or white or brown or yellow doesn't matter every adult every senior citizen who is alive on wheel chair or able to walk 90 or 95 years old every one of them has faced sexual harassment what if I told you that that's the situation we will be in the middle of the third world war that's the number of women who face sexual harassment in India we're still working with 30% but you just brought alive that with the power of comparison so when you work with numbers use the power of comparison it's not just the number that we present but how we present it that makes all the difference I wanted to share some of this with you and hope that this rubs off and each one of you is able to take some of this back and tell a better story about the work that you do may each one of you be a fantastic storyteller more importantly may each one of you be a better listener because when you listen you will tell a better story may yours be a fantastic one and I close here I'm happy to take questions and happier if there are none thank you for being here they all make me happy let's take the one at the back first sir and I'll come back to you in a moment so let me take that sir I'm an engineer by profession but I also do tell stories in my company too my heart goes out to you actually it's good why did you start by saying I'm an engineer we're all engineers here that's the context so a company just does not have only engineers there are people who are not engineers so the question I have for you is I think I'm good at telling stories to engineers that kind of understand their mental models but I really struggle to tell the same story or even like convince somebody who is not an engineer probably like somebody in an operations how do you solve that problem thank you for that very interesting question in our work we work with a lot of start-ups so I work with a lot of start-ups and accelerators I work with the Cisco accelerator and a lot of start-ups in the technology space who are doing something that has never been done before and it's not easy to explain that to investors who are not necessarily engineers so you see that most of the start-ups or many of them are doing something interesting in the energy space, fintech space disrupting businesses with new models and new technologies and they are pitching to people who are not necessarily from those backgrounds that's the test of good storytelling that you are able to be complicated to explain it to people and that's where metaphors come handy so when you work with metaphors and say let's go back to Jack Ma and today a lot of start-ups will say I am building this and people say what is this and they will say it's the Amazon of the grocery business or we are the Amazon of the logistics business or we are the aggregators who bring together partners but what if you were building a business where no Amazon existed what would you say? That's what Jack Ma had to do he was building a business where no parallel existed and he had to explain that to the investor the investor was Masa Yoshison the founder of Softbank so Masa Yoshison was in India some time back and people asked him how did you end up investing in Jack Ma and Paytm and Ola and all of these companies much ahead of anyone and Masa Yoshison says I look at the founder of the story they are telling and are they able to tell it without PowerPoint are they able to tell it without the aid of anything and if they are able to tell that I invest because I am not just investing in ideas I am also investing in the founder and their ability to tell a story because if the founder doesn't have the ability to tell a story how will they attract investment how will they scale how will they get people to quit Google and work for them and all of that so quit leave the PowerPoint see if you can sort of simplify it and you need to build vocabulary for that and when I say vocabulary I don't mean Sashi Tharoor vocabulary because that complicates things for people for me great vocabulary is you know take difficult subjects like machine learning, artificial intelligence cryptocurrency, bitcoin and there were people who were simplifying it way before Thiruvalluvar Thiruvalluvar any Tamilians here Thiruvalluvar the great Tamil poet was simplifying religion which is more complicated than machine learning and he was simplifying it in people's language Kabir the great Hindi poet was simplifying spirituality which is more complicated than bitcoins to people in layman's language so we need that metaphorical language to communicate technology Sam, Simili's analogies metaphors are an engineer's best friend when speaking to non-engineers may that power be on your side there are many examples of that if you want to look that up do write me a mail here's my email id and I'll be more than happy to to guide you to some of these examples and Dex which look at sort of converting technological stories into metaphors that make it easy for people to get that but that's the key use a metaphor so that's what you were asking he's a mind reader well thank you so much have a nice evening and stay back for the next session there's no more session there's food and alcohol outside that's what I meant stay back for the alcohol alright thank you it was a pleasure having you


So, why should I deploy my application to Azure Kubernetes Service? Well, one of the things that I really like to tell people is that we have some of the biggest experience in-house around Kubernetes. We're talking about people like Brendan Burns, people who are core contributors to the open source project. They are part of Microsoft and they are every day working to improve the AKS product so that you, the Kubernetes user, you don't have to worry about building all the underlying infrastructure. You don't have to worry about creating networks and you certainly, certainly shouldn't spend hours and hours say, you know, dealing with outages. Microsoft has provided you with Azure Kubernetes Service as a way to increase how much work you can do by reducing the overhead and giving you a place to deploy your containers.  AKS could be exactly what you need for your application. We have the experience to help you not only deploy it, but to scale it, and to grow with your application. So, give Azure Kubernetes Service a try if you're ready for Kubernetes, but just don't want to do all that extra work.


This is Chris Pipe. My friends call me Banksy. I'm back again guys. Today we're gonna be following up on my previous video about Face Palms. In fact, you guys submitted so many videos, so many links on my last one that I've decided to start a new series. It's gonna go once a week and it's called Freedom's Funniest Failed Videos. That's right. Hashtag Freedom's Funniest Failed Videos. That's a mouthful. I know, but here's what happened.   And not only that, we are not only gonna feature those videos. We're gonna run the clips. We're gonna give promotions and shout-outs to all the people that get in. So if we select your clip, we're gonna give you a shout-out. We're gonna put a link below so people can check out your videos.  Kind of what we do here. So without further ado, please, please, please check out these clips. Please let me know if you like this idea. And also remember, at Freedom's Funniest Failed Videos, failure is an option. In fact, it is encouraged.  I feel sorry for you.  We need that stuff. This is what we do here. We need a good laugh. We need a chuckle. Let's have some fun. All right, clip number one is by Girls Gaming. And there are two types of girls in this world, guys. There are games.  And there's girls that do play video games. And do you know what we call girls that play video games? Keepers. This girl's obviously a keeper. She plays FPS games. How awesome is that? I'm sure she's hot, too, but whatever. That'd be creepy. All right, let's just roll the clip. Is that it? Yeah. Oh, f***, gun. I swear to God. Oh, f***. Standard stuff. They win the match and then, well, somebody just decides to go crazy. And in fact, they decided. She calls it, um, bail videos, something, search and destroy, fail. I don't know, some generic title. But that's not what it should be called. That should be called suddenly a wild circumcision occurs. Look at the video. Look at it in slow mo. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me I'm wrong. All right, guys. The second video is by Media Heads TV. It's a battlefield for montage, but, but hold on. This is an epic montage full of face palms and 80s exercise videos. Yeah, I can't make this up, guys. Check out the video. Let me know what you think. This is just ridiculous. All right. Cue the video. Clip number two. You didn't get, you know, bombed or shot at by a helicopter or a gunship. No, you ran into a rock. Hmm. Anyways, definitely a fail and definitely loving that 80s montage action with the with the Jane Fonda dudes flexing man. Check out his channel. This stuff is great. All right, let's go into clip number three. All right, guys. The third clip is by Dysectra. He comments on every single video he's featured not only in this video. He's featured in previous videos and he's even on Freedom Online, our website. He's a total boss. He makes amazing videos. First person shooter, battlefield videos. But sometimes, sometimes when he's not kicking serious, ask he takes a wrong turn, a fail, wrong turn. In fact, a huge wrong turn. Let's check out the video for the clip. He did some special editing. It's kind of like it turns into a movie, like a real bad part and you slow-mose it. Excellent video. He's a good guy. Check out his channel. Go subscribe. All right, guys. And next clip is some Bloodborne action. This is East Ham 2010. He's a great guy. He's also an author on Freedom Online as well. He's got a clip here of him playing Bloodborne and well, he takes on some undead, beastie looking thing. And here's the thing. Well, let's roll the clip and then I'll give you the blow by blow play by play. All right, roll the clip. Dead hippo rhinoceros looking thing charging right at you. I don't know, real life video game, you name it. The general thing you don't want to do is charge you at it. Yeah, you might have a sparkly sword or whatever it is, but you don't charge those types of things, man, even I know that. I'm the worst gamer in the world, but I wouldn't charge it. I would like Dodge, but anyways, Epic fail. He makes hilarious videos. He's got some Mortal Kombat X videos, too, that I really, really like. Check out his channel. Subscribe. He's a boss. All right, the next clip is pretty straightforward. You're playing Destiny. You're getting pretty deep into the game. You're having a good time. You're getting close to the final boss. And then guess what happens? Well, watch the controller fails. I mean, this is a pretty standard fail.  That's why you buy a wired version and you always keep that bad boy charge. Sorry, bro, but Epic fail. Thanks for the submission. Check out his channel. He's got awesome content and his channel is called, hold on. XB360XB2. Yeah, I had to check on that because it's quite a vocal. It's like some weird palindrome with 360 in the middle. Anyway, cool channel, cool guy, check it out. Let's do another video. Shall we?  I don't even I don't even have words. Guys, my suggestion is if you see Herman T underscore T and he asked you to play a game of FIFA 2015, say no. That's horrible. I could I I could put a traffic cone in there and be better at Golda that. But anyways, it's a great video. It's full of fail. He's a great guy. He's got some awesome videos on there. He's got to learn how to play go a little better. But I don't know. You can just do what I do and pull the goalie. All right, guys, that's it for today. Please for next my next video, please submit your links below in the comments section, put your videos in there. We have a bunch of videos that I still have to put into the next show, but I need them submit them, put them in there. I want to give you guys shout outs. I want to help you grow, get more views, get more subscribers. That type of thing, guys. I hope you like this video. I hope you like this series. I will be back again probably tonight or tomorrow with another video. Stay tuned. This is Big Seed. Check it out.


It said I was a young dream, my lyrics have done my flow Don't sound the same, we'll drown in shame, with charges you know Can't adore this amount of pain, except I roam Sometimes I feel I need to be left alone My rep is known, these artists keep using me for a steppin' stone I'm stressed at home, I gotta get back to who I used to be A true emcee, I went from being a ship to mister who was here Damn this grace, man I can't erase this dumbfounded face It's fun like a glim, for chillin' around and lettin' my talent waste for oh so long Been a month of Sunday since I composed a song over the genre Scared you goosebumps, whenever I blow, though did the show perform So my folks, they welcome me with open arms Got help and deed and hope and strong, they felt my dreams and hopes was gone I refuse to chill on the block like how I used to Niggas are shootin' for your clothes with more hoes The ponky booster, keepin' it all the way funky just usual Stole of the miracles, homie, jokin' your views, I don't let them flow, case confusion Never been to practical breaks, there I ain't with the bloopers The planer for roofers and leavers, hangin' with mister Gloopers Let it thaw, I'm a butcher to beef rows And the hoodlin' the streets, chosen to wolf in the sheep's coat And the predator on the prowl, I gotta pray to the fullest Every single night, they got me dodgin' strays Several bullets up in this plastic world But I'm pity-parties, go away, I'm sorry I'm late Exposure to the garments, I take it's time for me to get my priorities straight The time goes by, and the days start flashin' Turns to months, then the years start passin' They're wondering why did I quit rappin' But not on my watch, I can't let this happen A time goes by, and the days start flashin' We turned to months, then the years start passin' They're wondering why did I quit rappin' But not on my watch, I can't let this happen Am I down the drain? They said I'm down the drain Tryin' to shit on my name Well, I'mma give them their pass They're thinkin' I lost my touch I've been off my joints since I fell off my crest Don't talk as much, they say I went soft Ever since my heart was crushed, so fuckin' help There's nothin' else that we could further discuss Can't word it enough, it ain't too many people inside of my circle The trust, the path is straight There's no need for us to elaborate them bad mistakes Your shoulders, your colors, cause you was plastic fate That's not an illusion I put the use to all the knowledge I'm usin' When some of my work control could burst a hold through your cloud of confusion But alert was true, you was the only one I was turnin' to Concernin' who for that bread, a hole in my pocket was burnin' through Got a chill, don't take no rockets, sign your tits to see I got skills And we got a kill, I'm real, and you niggas fake as a pill of bill I'm through with the chips, I went from sellin' the dirt to movin' the kush Can't trust ya, what is a man that bird of your hand is only worth two in the bush I run with enough, don't bang with them fools Because they foam with them bluffs, some doers runnin' with us And drop the down, and threw me under the bus to slither my name Throwin' up the changes, hard to handle the fame My man is to trade, to bring me a discipline That's how I gentle my brain, you rappers are through When I make me grip the gat, I'm slashing your crew If it's a jam, I'm fixin' a flat, so where's the patches included in this plastic world? When it's really hard for me to adapt my life from snap and write I pray to God that I wake up after the night They never down the drain, they say I'm down the drain They try to shit on my name, it's like, well I'ma give this pack, pack, pack That's why I was soon to blow, I battagged my rhymes so I could ruin my flow As far as the room is go, they said I was dead, but when it's my funeral, I'm runnin' late Would've never suspected this to become my fate, the niggas, they under-rape But some of the bait, I'm straight for the slum, say, hey, and the drugs, I dealt Keepin' it real, ain't singin' stuff for my health My lady then turned her back, because she probably think I gave up on myself I'm fine with my strif, gotta loosen up, my spirit is kind of tense I haven't been rhyming since, but be immature, restore my confidence I waste the years, sought against hell, that's how I taste my tears I had to escape my peers, alone on my own, that's how I face my fears I'm comin' up short, relax in my mind, sometimes I hover my thoughts But clever and smart, was never was taught to put the cut in front of the horse There's birth of the wise, don't be with them crabs I'm allergic to hives, I'm just thinner to the skies I heard of the lies, I won't discharge my promise Don't make a shot, make a number run, until I'm done with the drop My younglings are born to block, like, where you been? I crawled from under a rock, I lost a limb Stuck in a trap, somehow my heart was grim Taking a step by step, just like hierarchy, rid of the art museum Repeating the time, slowly but surely, reaching my peak of my prime I never was eager to find, but if I blow, make sure my people are fine I'm fighting it strong, can I check myself to know my rights or my wrongs?  And the days start flashing, as then the years start passing The wonder in why did I quit rapping, but none of my watcher can't watch this happen As time goes by, and the days start flashing Roots turning the months, as then the years start passing The wonder in why did I quit rapping, but none of my watcher can't let this happen Am I down to drain? This ain't I'm down, trying to shoot on my name Goddamn it, well I'ma give em this pain, pain, pain


Well, good morning and thanks for getting us exercise and some blood flowing before we get started. Well, one of my greatest honors in leading Fleet Cyber Command and the 10th Fleet is to actually get invited to come do stuff like this, be able to talk to a lot of different folks.  Because you might imagine, you know, the cyber part of my portfolio has a lot of demand and people want to hear me talk about what's going on in cyberspace. And so that's a very comfortable area for me to talk about. I'm not going to talk about that very much today. And so Ergo, comfort is not a place that I'm going to be in today. This will be my first keynote. I've served on panels here and we've done different types of events. But I haven't stood up in front of a group like this and talked about a topic like I'm going to talk about today. So, you know, that's a little uncomfortable. It may not be what you're expecting. You may not laugh at my jokes. I might have to tell you when they're jokes. That happens pretty routinely anyway. And then people will laugh. And you might think, boy, she likes to talk about herself. She needs to get over herself. The reality is nothing could be further from the truth. Hate talking about myself. But I was looking for something that might be meaningful to you that I've learned along the way. And so when I do talk to the geeks, I talk almost always about reducing the attack surface in cyberspace. And what does that mean? That means ensuring our mission by eliminating vulnerabilities that we present to the adversary. Vulnerability in this sense, we talk about it being a weakness. Being that an adversary can take advantage of to thwart our mission and to undermine what we're trying to accomplish. And so I talk about vulnerabilities a lot in terms of weakness, in terms of flaw. And today, standing here with you, we're here to talk about leadership. And the notion of vulnerability in leaders is a much disconnected sense from that of being a flaw or a weakness. In fact, it is, I believe, absolutely essential to lead. And so what we're going to talk about here today is some of the benefits of embracing vulnerability in how you conduct yourselves. I'm used to having an iPad to help guide my discussion. Today I have a treasure map that I don't know if I will need, but what we're hoping to do is follow that. And so when I talk about vulnerability, the Chief Naval Operations has recently published his maritime design. And one of the core attributes that he expects of his leaders is toughness, toughness. Toughness is the opposite of weakness. It's not the opposite of vulnerability. He also is expecting innovation, us to drive change. We live in a very uncertain world. And all of that, all of that puts us as leaders in a vulnerable position. So vulnerability is not weakness. It's the courage to take risk. And for those of you in the Navy, and maybe some others, you might have heard of John Paul Jones. I heard about him at a very young age, as you might imagine. And John Paul Jones talked about, well let me just quote him, he said, it seems to be a law of nature, inflexible and inexorable, that those who will not risk cannot win. And when I heard these words as a midshipman, I imagined this Scott who had come over and joined with the French Navy and the Continental Navy to take on the British during the Revolutionary War. And I imagined his words to mean taking risk in mission, sailing off against poor odds, sailing against a Navy that is well trained and well disciplined and maybe can outgun you, and taking risk, trying to achieve surprise and winning at the end. But I think his words have more meaning for us than just that. I think there is sort of the personal risk that we have to take as humans and as leaders. And I wanted to talk to you a little bit about that. I think I've always considered myself to be a little bit of a risk taker, not reckless, but a risk taker. People would probably agree with that analogy. And I think it goes back to a story, and I use the word story very heavily because my parents tell this story, about how I learned to swim. And it took place in Kentucky. This is back in the 1960s. My father at the time was a high school teacher, and he was a lifeguard in the summers so that we could eat. That was a joke. But not really, it was really true. It was so that we could eat. And I'm just making sure you guys are with me. And his methods in teaching me to swim may be a little unorthodox by today's standards. So he took then two-year-old Jan Elizabeth, or Jan Elizabeth that he used to call me, and he threw me into the deep end of the pool. And you guys are a gas, like, how could a person do that? He was 22 before you judge him, 22 years old, and he was a lifeguard, so we had the pool when no one else was around. And there were no video cameras, so no evidence. And I don't really remember, I don't really remember that. Now nine years later, when my brother came along, he was a much more responsible parent, and my mom and dad took my brother to swimming lessons at nine months old, because we lived in Florida at that point, and backyard swimming pools everywhere, so you had to know how to swim. So in the walk, you need to learn how to swim, because you could end up in one of these pools that would be very dangerous.  That was a very angry baby. But I mean, I watched it. He was mad as hell. I mean, just furious, red-faced, and we have videos of it. So it's fun. But at the end of the day, both my brother and I, very comfortable with the water, love swimming, love all water sports. And so there is risk in learning to swim, but with that is reward. And so that may have been the beginning of my willingness to take risk. There were more times. I think about when I was in high school, 16 years old, and one of my best friends, kind of a new best friend, I had grown up in the area. She was kind of new to the area. We decided it might be a good idea to run for class office. What could go wrong? Just put your name out there for all of your peers and classmates to vote on you. So there is risk in putting yourself out there like that. I ran for class president. She ran for vice president. And it worked out for us in that case. Little bit later, applying to the Naval Academy, first class of women had just graduated from the Naval Academy. And I thought, well, this might be fun. I was wrong. I was really wrong. But I was willing to take the risk and go see what it might be like. And I wasn't the best student or the best midshipman or the best example of professional development. But I graduated. And so that all worked out. I waited 15 years to go to graduate school, so 15 years since I had had a math class. And I thought, and I was a math undergrad. And really for my work, I really needed to be an electrical engineer. So 15 years out of school, go back and start in an electrical engineering master's degree program. Which means you got to kind of take all the bachelor's level electrical engineering classes. For me, that was again because I took some of them at the Academy. But at that point, so six months into that program, the opportunity to apply for a PhD came up. And guess what? I tossed my name into the hat. I hadn't even made it through the bachelor's courses in electrical engineering. And I knew that if I didn't try to grab this opportunity, it may not come along again at the right time in my career or whatever. So I tossed my name into the hat. And it worked out. So it's a lot of risk taking. And I can't even tell you exactly, you may ask, why do you do these things? Are you trying to prove something to yourself, to the world? Are you gluttoned for punishment? Is that what this is about? You want to hurt yourself? And at the end of the day, if you don't ever try, certainly you won't get to achieve these things. And so you may think that the moral of the story is with risk comes reward. But that's not really what I'm here to talk to you about. That was just a backdrop for what I'm here to talk to you about. The story is much different, as you might imagine. The reality of what was going on in my mind is much different than what it may appear or what your perception of it may be. And so let me set this up. When the PAO, Sean is here, and some of you know him, he's popular, I guess. Sean and I were talking about what's the right topic for this symposium. You're the keynote for having sakes. You need to have something besides your usual cyber shtick going forward. Okay. We started bantering about, I was reading Patrick Lanconi. Any of you heard of him before? Anybody? Okay. I would commend him to you if you're looking for some good reading or searching YouTube for videos that might be of interest. One of his books and one of the things he talks about is the five dysfunctions of a team. So everything that we do, you're working as part of a team, right? And so at the foundation, the first dysfunction is lack of trust. A team cannot function if there's not trust, if there's not open and honest communications and that you trust in each other. And we started bantering about this idea of the connection between leadership and trust and vulnerability. Because one of the things Patrick Lanconi talks about is that building trust requires vulnerability and that vulnerability is the courage to risk.  And I go, really? And he goes, yeah. And I go, who's that? And he goes, well, I'll send you her TED talks. And so he did that. And as it turns out, Dr. Brown, also another thing I would commend to you, Dr. Brene Brown, she is a research professor at the University of Houston. In the Graduate College of Social Work. Now you know why I've never heard of her before. And she's got a couple of TED talks. And the first one is the power of vulnerability. The second one is listening to shame. And so she has done research for the last 13 years on vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame, lots of taking in of people's stories, lots of talking to people. And she talks about vulnerability and one of her key findings in her research is that vulnerability is a willingness to do something when there are no guarantees. Vulnerability is about emotional risk. It's about uncertainty. And it's about being uncomfortable. She clearly points out that weakness and vulnerability are different. Vulnerability is not weakness. And in fact, in her research, she's found it to be the most accurate measurement of courage. And so let's reexamine all of those choices that I made. When I ran for junior class president, I wasn't particularly popular. I didn't consider myself among the cool kids. I wasn't confident of how this would go. I had no idea of whether I would be voted in or voted out. And at 16 years old, when you get voted, if somebody votes against you, what does that mean? What does that do to you? The rest of that story is the next year, my best friend and I decide, well, we ran for class president, why don't we try in student government? And so we flip flopped. She ran for the president of the student government. I ran for vice president. And like I said, she didn't grow up with all these people I did. And she won. And I lost. And it hurt. I actually, I think I went home from school that day, sick.  What have I done? And, you know, so it's not always about risking and winning. It's about risking and being willing to put yourself out there. And take the Naval Academy application, you know. You rely on a lot of people to write letters of recommendation. People interview you. You have to go take the SATs and the ACTs and the admissions office kept saying, you need to keep taking that over and over and over again. Because my math score was OK, but my verbal scores, not so good. So I took it over and over and over again. Eventually I took the ACT, which has a little bit different format, and I made it in. But it wasn't, you know, a walk in the park. And then, you know, the idea of going to the Naval Academy, you know, did I think that I was going to thrive there? I was looking to survive. It was something I was hoping to survive, because I would have been glad to have been, you know, through it. One of the least proud moments in my time was the first semester I was home on Christmas leave. My mom, who's a high school principal, is driving me back to the airport early so I can go to an academic review board, because I got a one, two, six in my first semester at the United States Naval Academy. Not a proud moment. It was very quiet in the car. It wasn't a sunny day in South Florida. It was all gloom. I really needed her to pull over the car so I could throw up. It was not, it was not good.  You need to get your priorities straight. You know, you need to do better in school and, you know, maybe you need to change your major from then chemistry to political science. Like, do you want me to come back here and fail again? No, I can't do political science. Let's just try math. I might have a chance. Look at my verbal scores. I can't even write. So, yeah, so that was in a proud moment. And then, you know, and then going to NPS, I was pretty senior. I was a, I was a very senior lieutenant commander, which is really late to go to your graduate program. So there was a risk that I wasn't going to, you know, get promoted. I had my promotion board met the first year I was at NPS. So, you know, it was pretty much based on those things that I had done before. But there, you know, there was risk associated with that. And then the PhD, you do screening boards, both written in oral. You do qualifying boards, both written in oral. And then you have to find something to research that nobody's ever done before. So, you know, I kind of knew what that process was. But, you know, the things running through my mind is, okay, now I'm a selected commander. The Navy has chosen me to go into this PhD program. What if I'm not smart enough? What if I, I can't, I can't get electrical engineering well enough? What, what's, that's not going to just be embarrassing and humiliating.  So, you know, so there's, there's a whole lot of, you know, of risk associated with those things. And as you make those decisions, those things are running through your head. When I got, when, when I was in my job after NPS, I, you know, and the selection for 06 came out. One of our most brilliant engineers that, that I had been working with, he was, he was a commander who had, who had retired as a commander and now working as a civilian.  Okay, all right. I mean, I, you know, he, you know, if you look at the history of things, that, that may have been the case. And so, you know, what I'm talking to you about is, is sort of the fear and the shame associated with it. Shame is, you know, being afraid you're not going to be enough for what is expected, that you're not pretty enough, that you're not smart enough, that, that you don't know enough about whatever specialty that you're in to go up for the next promotion. That we all have that. We all have that unless you're a sociopath. And hopefully you're not. I learned this from Dr. Brown. We all have that. So, so you'd rather have it than be a sociopath. That's, that's what she says. And so, so it's in us. Let's just submit it. It's in us. And so, when people look at my bio and, and look at the accomplishments that I may be most proud of, those very accomplishments end up in some cases being obstacles for making a connection to people. Right? Building trust. People are looking at you like, like you landed in a pod from Krypton. Right? And that couldn't be further from the truth. Like you have no weakness. You are confident in everything you do. The reality is not that. We are all, we all have vulnerabilities. And the question is, how do you build trust as a leader? You know, as you get more senior, how do you, how do you build trust moving forward?  What did I have to offer? What did Ensign Jan Chen at the time, my maiden name, what did Ensign Jan Chen have to offer? Her division. Her division, who was mostly older, probably smarter, certainly had a lot more experience in SIGINT and cryptologic operations than I ever had. You know, all I had to offer is, hey, I made it to the Naval Academy. You know? So maybe I could just fake my way through this and hope that they don't call me on it, you know?  You set up boundaries and hope that you're going to make it through while you're learning, hopefully, while you're trying to connect these people. But the very protections that you surround yourself with are the things that prevent you from building the trust. And so, you know, I look back and, you know, there wasn't Google at the time and my command of the English language wasn't very good, but I did learn at one point during, you know, that division officer time, I had a nickname and it was Dragon Lady. Now I look it up and I go, oh my God, that's terrible. You know, mysterious, okay. But, you know, strong, okay. But like, deceptive and manipulative and all these horrible things, like no, no, no, I'm not that, but they don't know because all they see is the barrier. So over time in interactions with people, you know, beginning to show more of yourself, getting that kind of feedback, seeing how that works, making sure people know that you're in it not for yourself but for the mission and for them is so key. And so, you know, it's the very things that, you know, our shame and our vulnerability and our inability to allow that to be expressed because we have lots of pressures on us to look tough and looking tough and being tough and strong and all knowing is incompatible with realizing that we're vulnerable. And so, you know, over the years, I've actually was able to sort of downplay some of those things, not that I wouldn't be myself or that I was ashamed that I was a Naval Academy grad or the PhD or whatever, but, you know, people in my community, some of them knew, but over time, it's not something I talked about. Hi, Jantai, Naval Academy grad, you know, Ringknocker, PhD in electrical engineering, what you got? You know, let's have a trusting relationship. You know, let's build a bond. No, you know, that doesn't work. So, you know, I try to reach out and make a connection to people, you know, and all of that stuff is just things I did, not necessarily who I am. And it's kind of funny, when I got to the Pentagon as a, when I was at the Pentagon as a one star, I got to work with a whole lot of people from other communities that I hadn't had the opportunity to work with. One of them, and for a year, one of them was Tommy Rao and Vice Admiral, Community Service Forces.  So, I'm working with Tommy for a year. We're going, you know, into meetings and working solutions, you know, across information dominance and surface warfare. And about a year into it, he goes, I didn't know you had a PhD. And I'm thinking, I'm not sure how to take that. But the point is good, good. I'm glad you didn't know. I don't know if that would have been any kind of inhibitor if you, you know, would have treated me differently or whatever. So, I really tend to downplay that as a compensation to try to make a connection to people.  I use humor a lot with my folks. I try to be funny. I think I'm funny. They laugh, but you never can be sure. So, the point I'm trying to make is that we all have this shame and vulnerability. And if you want to build trust with your sailors, soldiers, airmen, Marines, civilians, you have to be willing to show yourself. Building trust is fundamental to being a leader. And I know that there are haters out there, right?  But the reality is, who do haters hate most? Exactly. They hate themselves. So, when they're hating, they're just, they're just showing themselves in that regard.  Let's see who's willing to be brave. So, who's read the Twilight series? Okay. Who's, okay, okay. Who's read the Twilight series as an adult? Okay. Who's read the Twilight series more than once as an adult? I don't know what's wrong with me. Really? Okay. But the point is, the thing I'm trying to draw on there is the special power of Bella is her shield, right? It's her shield. It's how she protects herself from all the other special powers of all the vampires, of all the other vampires. And in the end, she finds a way to project her shield and let people in. And to let people know her and see her. And the rewards are great for her. And so, it's a vulnerability, but I would encourage you to project your shields so that you may lead, build trust, and open and honest communications. So, thank you very much. Oh, ma'am, don't run away. On behalf of the Sea Service Leadership Association, we'd just like to present you with this very special gift.