Hello everybody, my name is Mike Hadley, I'm the head of digital communications here at the World Economic Forum and I am extremely proud and delighted to be introducing this conversation between three of the world's most renowned professors in artificial intelligence and social and emotional, the creation of social and emotional intelligence in robots and machines. Coming at the end here we have Maya Pantik who is a professor of effective and behavioural computing at the Imperial College in London. We have Vanessa Evers who is professor of human-media interaction at the University of Twente in the Netherlands and Justine Kussel who is the associate dean of technology strategy and impact at the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in America. In the very very brief time I had to get familiar with what our guests do, this is the understanding to which I came. In order to make a machine understand what a human is thinking or how to make it very, interact very smoothly with a human and in a social situation you have to do three things. You have to sense what it's doing and interpret those signals. You then have to build a machine that is capable of understanding the analysis that you have had from that data and then you have to interpret, you have to imbue the machine with some kind of interaction capability with the outside world. I think that's kind of where we're at. That's left to right. My job in this whole process is to interpret data that comes through from sensors. Let me ask you that question. We have a camera, we pointed at a camera or some kind of a sensor, we pointed at a person and we get data from that sensing. What happens then? You got it right so we need to have a kind of sensor. The sensor doesn't matter. Cameras are definitely important because based on the cameras we can have the videos of the faces for example or the bodies. Then we can analyze for example facial expressions which is also the main topic of my research. What you do with that is actually you track certain characteristic points in the face such as for example corners of the eyes or corners of the eyebrows, corners of the mouth and so on. Based on the movements of those points you can reason about the motion of the face and reason about the muscle actions that underlie this facial expression. You can actually see that if the corners of the mouth go upwards, well you smile. If the corners of the eyebrows go up that will be an eyebrow raise and then that's a first level of interpretation that you can give and the second level of interpretation will be actually the meaning of those actions that the face produced. The meaning can be different. These facial muscle actions they are agnostic, they are totally independent of the meaning and the higher level interpretation that you give. Which you can then interpret those further into emotions for example such as joy or surprise, fear, whatever kind of emotion you are interested in. You can also say whether this is just a positive or a negative emotion which we call valance which is how positive something is or you can go into some other kind of interpretation of mental states such as pain for example, depression, attention and so on. So based on the signals that I said in those facial analysis you come to these higher level interpretations that then can be used in further analysis and in further building of machines that can actually take into account the emotional state of a person. In emotions, I'm happy because of the context in which that happiness arose. How do you teach a machine to take into account the context of an emotion? Well this is, context as a word and a term is a very complex thing. So context actually is who the person is and that's very important because how I will express for example joy may be different than how a person will express it. That joy is something which we consider something which is universally expressed. Everybody in the room probably smiles when they are joyful but in principle there are different things like pain. How I will express pain may be very very different than how other people will express it. So who the person is is the first contextual question. Where that person is. So for example if I'm here and I raise my eyebrows it's definitely not that I'm surprised. I probably want to emphasize what I want to say. What I'm doing, this is again linked. If I speak or if I listen, if I listen and I throne it might be that I actually doubt what you said or I don't understand. But if I talk and I throne it might be I'm not sure about this. So again the interpretation is different. The next one is where I said that. Why that's actually whether it's emotion, whether it's this kind of underlying, this is actually what we want to find out and how I express these things. So that's context. Context is very difficult. And there are currently no machine learning methods that truly take context into account. So because context is also taking into account time which we currently use only on short terms so we can analyze something like a second of a video and reason about that but we cannot analyze days. And for example if you talk about moods then days are needed or about strain due to stress. So first you have to analyze the stress and see the stress and then know that the strain is due to the stress. So context is very important but how we will do it in machine learning is still not known. So that's like one of the challenges that we have in the field. So we have data relating to how the human is feeling. How do you start the process of building a functional machine that uses that data? So the work that Maya is doing and we use it especially for machines that have to interact with people. So non-machines that are in a factory with a cage around them and arrows on the floor so you know where to walk and stay away from those machines. But robots for instance and autonomous cars and intelligent homes that interact with people. And when you interact with people you have to take into account the social environment. You have to understand what people's situation is, what the social situation is what they're in and their emotions. So the algorithms that Maya develops are really important to understand the social scene. So it's one of the robots that we built is running around in Schiphol Airport and it's supposed to pick up passengers from one gate to the other gate and it goes to that gate autonomously. So it drives around there but when it sees people in front of it it shouldn't treat them as objects that you need to go around. The robot must understand what a group of humans is and it would be nice if he could see well it's a little family or this is maybe a group of people that seem to belong together and then go around those people.  And it gives these machines social skills and social intelligence which is essentially if you want this technology to integrate into our environment. Once when they're exploring Mars or when they're in the factory you don't need it so much. But when they come into our homes and they give us services or enter the hospital and they give us services it's very important that they fit very naturally in our environment and that they behave kind of in a way we expect. It can't be exactly like people because robots often don't look or sound like people at all but something that seems intuitive to us so that needs to be designed very carefully in that behavior. So you said you have some of these carts already in Shippo Airport already using this kind of technology. Some other examples please. So actually a robot that Maya and I worked on together is called a frog. It was really interesting about the robot is that it can offer services in outdoor environments and we proved that by having the robot run on its own autonomously in an outdoor cultural heritage environment and it approaches people. It knows when they are interested so thanks to Maya's algorithm it can detect people's interest and it adapts the content that it provides to that interest. And it navigates the environment autonomously. It builds a map on its own and what's really interesting is that it works outdoor because outdoor and Maya could tell more about that. It's very difficult to use the data that comes from the sensor technology because of the weather and the light conditions and anything that can happen when you're not in a nice room that's perfectly lit. So that's another example we work on. For instance robots for in a hospital setting feeding robots that listen to the conversation before they offer food so that you more naturally partake in the dining rituals such as rescue robots that are able to understand whether someone is in pain and kind of try to respond appropriately to that. Cars that know whether you are distracted. Homes that know whether you belong there and I can keep going. Very good. So just in my understanding of your work is that if Maya works with the individual and the recognition of emotions in the individual, you are a pioneer in making machines work together with others. Right, that's correct. So we've talked so far about the detection of cues and then how we infer underlying psychological states from those cues. And once we understand those underlying psychological states, how do we use our understanding of them to build robots or systems of any kind whatsoever, it could be a car, as Vanessa said, that can respond appropriately. And the kind of response that Vanessa has been working on is detecting the social situation and the emotions and using that to respond appropriately, not to interrupt for example a family unit. In my own work, I understand what we do to be towards the end of allowing robots of all kinds to better collaborate with people and to collaborate with people over a lifetime, not just over a minute. So facial expression for example is very difficult to detect over long periods of time. But I've built a mobile assistant that is a kind of a cartoon virtual human that exists on your cell phone and when you put your cell phone down it can slide onto your computer screen when you go into the kitchen, it could slide onto the front of your refrigerator, when you go into the living room, it could slide onto the wall of the living room. It's there with you all the time. It would be crazy if that system every morning said to you, hello, I'm your cell phone and you would say I know you're my cell phone, we've been together for around five years now. And so to remove that sense of aphasia, we need to understand how people work in groups, in dyads, how interpersonal relationships work and how they facilitate collaboration and all kinds of other work. So in my own work I've looked at several use cases. One is your mobile assistant that can help you figure out what's most important on your calendar. Another is to learn what kind of news you like and to present that news, but to present it in an increasingly amusing or edgy or entertaining way. So I know you like sports, so I've been looking for something for you, unfortunately you like the Steelers and not the Broncos and the Steelers aren't doing so well, but don't worry, next year everything will be fine. For the moment our cell phones don't do that for us, they don't change over time. Another extremely important use case is education. We know about young people and particularly about young people in underserved communities and under resourced schools that one of the reasons that they have trouble learning is that they don't feel that there's somebody in the classroom who respects them, who cares about them and who is like them. And so one of the systems we've built that actually we've been demoing over in the loft and you're welcome to come see it today and tomorrow until six in the evening is a virtual friend, a virtual peer for children in a classroom. And this virtual peer gets to know you and it builds interpersonal closeness between itself as a virtual peer and the real child and it uses what we might call the social infrastructure or the social scaffolding to improve learning and in a recent experiment we discovered that in fact it does just that. Children who come to school in a situation where they might speak a dialect different than what the teacher speaks and so there is not a teacher in that classroom who's like them and they can feel marginalized. Those children learn more science and learn science better when they work with a virtual peer who speaks the way they do but who also models for them how to switch into the standard English of the teacher as soon as the teacher comes into the room. So they're being taught how to maintain a connection to their home culture, extremely important for all of us and also how to have access to school success by speaking in the way that successful people speak in that particular culture. Those are just two use cases. We have to remember why we're doing this and why we're here talking about AI so much this year at the World Economic Forum. There's so much fear about killer robots and factory robots that are going to overtake the CEO and take her or his position and that's not just something that's going to happen. We build robots and virtual people in our own image, in the image of what we care about. It's our decision whether to build them as aggressive war robots or to build them as robots who care about emotions, who care about people and who work on building interpersonal bonds and the three of us care about preserving those aspects of humanity that make us most human and that is emotion and social interaction. So very much you provide the context that we talked about earlier with all your work is moving in that direction towards providing the context. And interacting as a function of a changing context because context changes over time. So humans as we know all have different levels of emotional and social intelligent. You have one end of the scale, you've got Bill Clinton and the charismatic leaders and then on the other end of the scale perhaps some people with more autistic ways of interacting. What are the conceptual challenges to getting a machine up that spectrum as it were? And where do we stand? So actually Vanessa and I currently have the project with working with autistic kids. But the whole idea there is to help them understand the expressivity, especially facial expressivity in them and the others. The issue is that autistic kids cannot interpret facial expressions of people easily because they miss this gestalt, which means taking the whole face as a whole into account. They actually see it as a totally divided set of parts. The mouth is the mouth. The mouth is mouth, move separately, eyebrow, eyebrow. And you know the issue is when they try to learn how to express because they cannot also react first they get totally shocked when people start moving faces because for them that's like very, very complex set of things going all the way around. That's the first trouble. The second one is they have to react to that and they have no clue how to react to that. So we can teach them actually that what certain expressions mean and how they should express. And it seems that robots are much better teachers in case of autistic kids. The main reason being is that the robots are always consistent so they will show the expression exactly in the same way each time. And if you ask a human to do that there is no chance they will do it because they want to emphasize, well you have to smile. And when you do that for them that's a completely different expression than if you smile just regular smile, right? So it is really important for them that it is very consistent in the same way. So the project is about that. That's an autistic part but if you want to ask how far are we understanding automatically whether somebody is on say more extrovert or more introvert or more dominant side or more whatever side of personality scale, well this is something which we do not have currently the technology for, not due to the technology but actually due to data. We just simply do not have enough of data of dominant people being labeled as dominant people and doing certain things like because what does it mean being dominant? What does it mean being introvert and extrovert, right? We know it like we can explain to you what does it mean but we don't have the data enough that I teach my models well that's how the extroversion is expressed, right? So yeah, maybe I can add to that, maybe I can add to that. So we've got about 10 minutes left, I'm looking forward to hearing from you and then I'd very much like it if we could get some questions. I'm going to add something too. Oh okay great. Short ads from both of us and then we'll open it up. So you asked about a conceptual challenge and I think everybody here in the room they are sitting a certain space apart from each other because we have these rules about how we behave and the technology up to now we keep it in our pocket, we put it somewhere but now this technology is acting on its own, it's going to drive around, it's going to do stuff, it's going to grab things, it's going to give it to us and that means that you need to comply to these rules that we have in our society. So we have to figure out I guess conceptually what these rules are for robots because there are different things in animals and there are different things in humans and only then can we have people and robots work together effectively because I think the challenge is not super human intelligence so that they can surpass us and I don't know be better wives and children raisers and computer scientists I don't know but that we make these computers work together with humans in the most effective way possible. And purposeful. So you must have a purpose, the purpose is usually to help the person, to help the job, to help some state, medical state, whatever but purposeful and these robots going to the war and so that's not purposeful, there is no goal there, right, the goal is to destroy it. So I would say as well the challenge of working with individuals with autism particularly high functioning autism or Asperger's is a very interesting one for researchers like the three of us who are interested in social and emotional intelligence and my own work also with children with high functioning autism or Asperger's I was able to demonstrate that the virtual human was able to teach social skills in such a way that children were better able to learn those social skills from the virtual child than from a teacher using the state of the art methods and that once the child had learned those social skills he or she was able to transfer that learning to interactions with other real children which is kind of the holy grail of what we do, we don't want children spending the rest of their lives interacting with robots or virtual beings, we want them to apply what they've learned to their interactions with real children. I would also say that when you talk about a spectrum of ways of being that's, that brings up a phenomenon that's called entrainment and entrainment means to come to act like somebody that you're interacting with and it's something that all of us do in a conversation I can demonstrate to you that after a mere two minutes you will start to use similar words as the other person. Your intonation the kind of curve of your voice and how loudly you speak will come to resemble the other person and this issue of entrainment is something that my students and I are working on how can we avoid the necessity of categorizing people as one way or another and rather simply, simply it's not that simple actually, teach our systems to entrain to how they are so that because when people entrain to us our affect for them goes up we like people who speak the way we do, who act the way we do, if we can build systems that know how to entrain then we can deal with anybody on that spectrum. Yes, please. How could you learn because I think it's a very interesting issue that you're raising emotional intelligence and artificial intelligence, how this could help us as CEOs to to understand more of the team because everybody knows that we are not talking to machines but sometimes the CEO thinks that they are talking to machines. They are like do this, this, and this and if you are able not only to gain that with let's say arguments but also with emotional intelligence at the end of the day you're going to gain their brain, their intelligence, their intellectual but also their heart. So this is something that concerns me every day, how to interpret it and how we are going to talk about the purpose because the millennials and also the employees more and more they want to have a purpose is not only a quest about money and total compensation but I'd like to listen from you what you have to say about that, how to connect the two things and then to learn more because at the end of the day we need to have just one team, one team with different views but after discussing we just have one view and okay let's go in this direction. So one of the systems that we built that was very effective in teaching social and emotional skills asked people to control the virtual human.  We said just control the virtual human and then at the end of the interaction if you don't like how it went you can you know change some something about how you control it and we'll try again with another person and what we found was that the act of controlling a virtual human in a room with other real people allowed the people doing the controlling to reflect on their own behavior in a way that is rarely possible. So in some sense to talk about it scientifically their hypothesis testing they're thinking about okay what's the right way to work. A nice example from a teenager with autism was that he said to me you know that was that didn't work at all because I think that guy expected me to ask him how he was doing. So next time I'm going to leave time for him to talk. Now this is an issue with individuals with autism. They don't know the concept of contingency. That is someone else says something. You say something that has to do with what they said. But this child learned this in the process of controlling the virtual human. Same thing with adults. You can reflect on whether your management style is a management style that's successful by watching its effects. Now there are many books for CEOs that say get to the balcony, reflect on what you're doing. That's nice but it's a little abstract. If you're in another room watching an avatar of yourself in some sense, a representation of yourself, that can be an easier way of doing this kind of reflection. Just to add we have actually a technology that watches people while communicated with other people through internet. And we are raising flags like there is a conflict rising. You may want to use more positive or agreeable words in order to make this work. So it's actually helping with managing styles. I think there are many applications possible. So if you would have a detection of dominance, it would give you a little buzz every time you're being dominant. You would notice how often in the day you are dominant and you could adapt your behavior to that for instance. And there are many possibilities. And all of these things are possible because of this three-step process that we talked about. First, recognizing observable cues that are observable but not necessarily consciously interpretable by all of us. Secondly, inferring what underlying psychological state they mean, whether they're indicating that someone is angry or depressed or whatever. Figuring out the social context that you're acting in and having the intelligence to interact with a human in order to improve that situation. And that can be interacting as a virtual human or it can be in some sense whispering in the ear of the real human. You might not want to do that again. You know, did you notice a lot of people have been quitting? It could be because you're acting in the following way. Should we go down the back here? Sure, thank you. Well, that last comment made me think of what you think of the Hello Barbie project. But my real question was, I was wondering if you could talk about some of the design decisions that were relevant to building trust and familiarity in the physical aspect of these interactions. I think Vanessa and I probably do some things that are similar and some things that are different. In my case, I build virtual humans and when people work with me and build robots, they build robots that have the form of a human. But I never build anything that looks too realistic. And that's an important design decision for me because I'm not trying to fool anybody into thinking that this is a real person. On the contrary, it's very important for my work, I think for much of our work, that people know the limits of ability of these systems. And I convey that by the form. So the virtual child, for example, looks like a cartoon of a child, not too cartoonish, realistic enough to evoke in the other person unconsciously and automatically the skills of social interaction. But still not so realistic that it makes you think that it's real. So I guess two, oh, sorry. Yeah, do you want to add? There's time, it's all too stabile. I think there are basically two design approaches to developing robots for human interaction. And one is psychology in form, so you look at how people do it and then you try to replicate that. But you've got a robot with no arms, so you need to figure out a way to point and you're dealing with it that way or you take more product design approach where you say, okay, what is the function? What is the outcome that I want? And then design from scratch. And I think very often it's a combination of those two to leverage the familiarity that we have with humans. And we might take one last question because we're kind of out of time. Oh, I guess I'll just talk. I love the work that you're doing. Thank you. I love the work that you're doing. I actually have dyslexia and I would have loved a virtual peer growing up to help me learn how to read. It was hard learning on my own, but somehow I managed. My question is more on the ex machina craziness that you probably face every day of having to defend against. And I'd love to hear it directly from the source. Emotional intelligence is what leads to empathy. And I think that as we move forward in building these machines, I think it's very important that they have empathy. But humans have a spectrum of emotions and intelligence when it comes to being able to express themselves. And we have, people don't have empathy. How do we make sure that these robots are going to have it? And what if there's some kind of malfunction? There's quantum computers now and they're going to be so much more intelligent than we are. How do we make sure that they stay empathetic? Well, what you actually raise here is a very, very important issue. And that's consciousness. You can truly be empathic or not empathic truly. I can build now a robot that will appear to be empathic. It has no idea what you actually show or whatever, but it's learned there is a role.  But it will mean nothing. But what you actually say is that once it starts meaning something and starts truly having empathy or not, but that's actually evoking the consciousness that that's whole ex machina about, which is a very bad movie, by the way. I'm sorry to say my personal opinion. So the whole idea is that we do not know what is the real model because that's the whole point. Do you need the model for consciousness and thinking because what is consciousness? I know that you know that I know that's a true consciousness, right? This is epistemic logic, right? Having a model of that, do you need a model or that, or it's enough to embody in the robot and say, or in any entity, artificial intelligence entity, that you can find the model on internet and now load it and then fill it in with whatever you want and get the consciousness, right? So we are actually really far from that. And again, it comes the whole idea of what I just said before, purposeful. What is the purpose of embedding this code? Yes, there is a model of consciousness that you can download from internet, right? And you can follow and find whatever you want further on internet because you're just googling. That's knowledge, right? It's just googling, nothing else. But the issue is that there is this first line of code that there is a model somewhere on internet. The question is what, which purpose will that serve? And given that I don't have an answer to that and I think this will be really ridiculous to have that integrated into a robot, I believe we will not come to that. But that's my belief and I'm really talking only for myself because I do know a lot of scientists that actually believe that this may be of importance. So that will be probably one of the debates in the field. And perhaps it's not a coincidence and I think Vanessa, you probably think similarly that you're not imbuing your robots with consciousness. One of the things that characterizes those of us who work on social and emotional intelligence, or I'll speak for myself here is what are our purposes? What are our goals? My goal is to build a system, a robot or a virtual human that can evoke empathy in humans. Not that can demonstrate empathy. What I care about is real people. That's why I do the work I do. I care about teaching them empathy, maintaining the sense of empathy that I believe we're all born with, and preserving empathy because it is one of the things that makes us human and that we care most about. And I use systems that understand, model, scaffold, teach, interactional skills such as empathy, or rapport, or interpersonal closeness by building something that gives the automatic cues of being like a real human in such a way that the real human acquires or demonstrates or uses those skills. But it doesn't, it's not a goal of mine to give the underlying psychological state to that system. We just might have a quick closing mission statement, I guess, from my own Vanessa. Okay, well, I think we really want to build these robots to be effective and efficient, to work with people optimally. And that's actually a very simple goal, in a way. And in order to do that, you need to understand the social situation in which we work and in which we live. Otherwise, these products will not be accepted, they will not be effective. So it's essential that you take the emotional and social state of people into account in this technology. I believe that the technology is very powerful and I believe that we can use it for many good applications. And I believe this whole hype that you heard here about losing jobs because of AI and robots. Technology is a really hype, it's just ridiculous because this is the same thing that we constantly hear. We need people that have to be educated in technology and a lot of jobs are lost because people are not educated in technology. At the same time, we are talking about losing jobs because technology will be developed. So it's just a contradictory thing, right? That we are constantly hearing and everybody gets into that trap. So I know this audience is not big, but just don't believe these things, this is just crap. And another thing which is interesting is that as technology develops, new jobs will open up. Did we know about all the internet services that will be here? No, we didn't know. And they're here and most of us work actually in these kind of jobs, right? So I just think that people should not be scared about technology and technological advancements. And I believe that we all really want just to help each other. So that's the whole purpose of this. And with those optimistic words and outlook, thank you very much. Thank you, thank you. It was a great pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.


I was a communist for the FBI. Fighting pale of danger and espionage. I was a communist for the FBI. Authentic experiences of mathematics. Two for nine fantastic years. Lived as a communist for the FBI. I spent nine long years living a lie. A lie called communism. And it was a fighting experience. Many a time I wanted to rush up to you on the street, and grab a hold of your coat and shake you and yell, can't you see what's going on?  I didn't do it because I knew that, at that time, you wouldn't believe me. The lie had been told too well. You better believe me now, though, mister, or you may wake up some morning living or dying that same lie. The lie called communism. Listen to Dana Andrews, that's mathematics. Under cover man.  Even a communist for the FBI. You feel that you're being watched, fight upon, and that the Central Committee is getting a constant stream of reports on what you do, who you see, even what you eat. It's party discipline, self-enforced by fear. As an FBI agent, as I walk at a meeting place, I'm haunted by the sense of being followed. For no tangible reason, my heart beats faster than the sounds of my temple. I duck in and out of arcade, checking my back through. I see no one that I recognize. Still, I'm out of breath, and I round the last corner and find my FBI contact waiting for me in the car. After a last look over my shoulder, I find the car deciding.  Think someone was following you, Matt? I always think someone's following me. Nothing new, Anna? Nothing spectacular, anyway. We had another cell meeting, since my last report. Getting more frequent, aren't they? Yeah, but nothing's happening. Nothing of any great importance at any rate. At this last meeting, we took in three new members and were notified of another special assessment. There have been a lot of assessments lately, haven't there? Yeah, and they've all been ordered by the State Central Committee instead of by National Headquarters. State, huh? Any indication of what they're for? Not yet. If they're building up a ward chest, they may be going to back some candidate against Senator Stewart. Oh, he's too strong. They wouldn't waste the money. The fact is, they seem to have given up on Senator Stewart. What? Well, if the word come down to lay off a character assassination, then they have a new idea they think is better. It has to be. They never give up on any man in public office who's done as much damage as Stewart, eh? That's probably right. That's a special assessment, Matt. Maybe there is something spectacular cooking, but it's several blocks from home so that I can get some exercise walking. And as I walk, I think, but no matter how much I think, I can't connect the special assessment with Senator Stewart. Back in my room, I give up thinking and stretch out on the bed. I'm about to doze off when I knock at the door, send it to my feet. It's Comrade Hobart, my fellow leader, with a message that will eventually lead me to the reason for those special assessments. Sorry to disturb your red comments, Betty. Why? I wasn't asleep. There's a meeting at my house tonight. I hope it's more important than the last two or three, Comrade Hobart. You're not tiring of party activity, Comrade. No. I'm glad to hear that. I'm tiring of party inactivity. I should have known. There are plans in the making, Comrade Servetic, which should satisfy even your craving for action. What are they, Comrade? I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to devour them, even to you, until they're complete. However... Yes, I can almost promise that they will be complete before tonight's meeting. Be sure to be there. I'm at the meeting, all right. Long before anyone else arrives, except Comrade Hobart, and it's his house. I don't learn anything about plans, though. It's strictly a routine meeting, as far as I can see. A couple of comrades report on their activities in various front organizations. But I hear nothing that sounds like new activity. And I don't until the meeting is adjourned and the members are leaving. I'd like to have you wait until after the others have left, Comrade Servetic. This will be a couple of minutes before they're gone. Why don't you wait for me in the kitchen? Anything you say. Comrade Corbin, did you know that the others were leaving? Well, I hope they were. I was asked to wait, too, Comrade Servetic. Any ideas to what it's all about? No more than you. Maybe not as much. I couldn't even guess. And wouldn't if you could, huh? Others are gone, Comrades. We can be on our way now. On our way? Well, we're going, Comrade Hobart. We're driving to the state capitol for a conference at the Federal Committee. Right now? Immediately, Comrade Servetic. I received a phone call just before your ride this evening, advising me that the plans I mentioned to you are complete. Can you tell us what they are, Comrade? Sorry, Comrade Corbin, I don't know the details. I know only that they involve Senator Stewart. And that once they're set in motion, no one, not even Comrade Servetic, will have cause to complain about lack of activity. All I can think of as we get into Comrade Hobart's car and drive to the state capitol Johnson, my FBI contractor that afternoon, was right. I want to call him and congratulate him, but there's no chance. Not even when we get to the capitol. Nordstrom, the chairman of the State Central Committee, has waited up for us. He gives us the word and sends us back home that night.  There's less chance of us being spotted by the FBI at this time, Comrade Corbin. But if the plan is to... Comrade Servetic is right, Comrade. The essence of the committee's plan is timing. A premature exposure would ruin everything. Do you like the idea, Comrade Servetic? I think it can be very effective, Comrade Hobart. Very effective. However, as you just said, a premature exposure would defeat us completely. Completely, Comrade. That is why the committee took the precaution of having us drive to the capitol at night and gave the details of the plan only to us three. No one else will know. No one. But we're to use other party members. We will tell them what to do. Not why they do it. In that case, if the details of the plan should leak out, one of us must be guilty. Obviously, Comrade Servetic. Well, why the sigh, Comrade? Relief, I guess, Comrade, knowing that we needn't worry about the trail. It would be extremely unpleasant for anyone who betrayed this plan, Comrade. It is the perfect formula for giving Senator Stewart the kiss of death. If the Central Committee's plan works, it is the perfect scheme for eliminating Senator Stewart from public life. In fact, if it is not exposed prematurely, it can be used against any political enemy of the Communist Party. And only three of us, Comrade Hobart, Comrade Corvin and I, know the details. As soon as we get back to our city, I call the FBI and report. But Johnson can give me no help at the moment. This is big math. I know that. Too big for any suggestions? Before I have to go to Comrade Hobart. But he doesn't. And the tension begins to build again. Only three of us know the plan. Not many to share the suspicion that the plan is upset. I wonder if anyone's only going to that phone booth will come out. Well, they heard me talking to the FBI. By the time I get to the meeting that night, I'm jumping ahead. And the meeting is in progress. And now, comrades, we come to the real purpose of this meeting. Consideration of Senator John Stuart. The enemy of the world's democratic and peace-loving peoples. We have suffered a serious defeat.  His reactionary opposition to Communion. It's impossible to defeat Senator Stuart in the usual way. In fact, my advice is don't cut the details of this plan. If each of us follows his orders unquestioningly, we cannot fail. I accept the review, comrades. It's to register as members of the Senate's political party. I need your registration tomorrow. Your next move is to join the ward club of the Senate's party in your award. And work hard for the renomination of Senator Stuart. This will defeat Stuart. We'll not only defeat Senator Stuart, but approve the weapon we can use successfully against any reactionary who opposes Communism. And then executed without file. But things get done. The dictatorship exerted over members of the Communist party, even here in America, no exception to that rule. Two days after they received their orders, every member of our cell had registered as a voter in Senator Stuart's party. And meeting with Carmen Corbyn and myself, the board reports that the State Central Committee is clean. The committee is satisfied with the manner in which we have executed the preliminary step of the plan, comrades. An hour of orders for the next step. The committee has finished Stuart's details, comrades.  The details have been left to the three of us. It's a matter of timing. The committee wants the exposure to be made on the day before the election. And that will allow every voter to hear that Senator Stuart has been actively supported by party members. And there won't be time for them to hear his denial. That's right. No one ever pays attention to denials anyway. People are much more interested in scandal. Some newspapers discovered that a long time ago. The next point is perhaps even more important than the matter of timing. The methods of exposure. I've been wondering how we were going to handle that. Without tipping the whole scheme. Brilliant in its simplicity. If we can work it out. The jury for the committee's come right over. Mine, Comrade Corvin. The committee permits no ifs. What's the plan? One of us is to establish contact with some important member of the group and Senator Stuart's own party. Opposed to his renomination. After gaining this person's confidence. We'll furnish him with documentary proof of Senator Stuart's communist support. And permit him to make the exposure. That's how we to establish this contact, Senator. That, Comrade Sevetik. Is the detail that the committee has left to us. The assignment of making this contact. Because this is the key to the whole plan. Of Comrade Corvin volunteers before I do. I try to draw him out on how he intends to make his contact. And with whom. But he's too cagey. And since there's nothing more to discuss. Everything breaks up. And on my way home, I phone the FBI. Calling from a phone booth, Johnson. The news is bad. The documentary proof of Stuart's red backing will be made public through a member of the Senator's own party. That's the plan. Comrade Corvin, the unfriendly witness, is going to make the contact. Once we know his contact. At this place early this morning when Corvin didn't show by no, the agent phoned his rooming house and checked out late last night. He must have been suspicious of my questioning. Something happened. Under the circumstances, Matt, I hate to ask this. Because you may be sticking your head right into the lion's mouth. But we have to know where Corvin is so that we can trail him through his contact. Yeah. I'll see what I can find out, Johnson. Good. Has the Bureau figured out its counter scheme yet? Not yet, Matt. It's a tough problem, but I understand they're going to decide one way or the other sometime today. I'll probably be able to give you the word when you report on Corvin. Report on Corvin. What he meant was, if you report on Corvin, then unconsciously I start thinking of ways to avoid seeing Comet Hobart.  Though I go to Hobart's house, he doesn't act suspicious. So I leave the conversation around to Corvin. He's a valuable man, Comrade Semitic. No question about that.  He has an acquaintance in Senator Stewart's party opposition who just fits our plan. Has he said so? Not in so many words. However, he called me this morning to report that he had his contract and had moved. Where'd he move to? When I asked him, he said he'd tell me after he completed his mission. Right now he's developing his contact and avoiding all party members. Who is his contact? Obviously someone of importance, but just who is Comrade Corvin's secret? He didn't tell me, and frankly, I don't want to know. Why not? Well, I wouldn't care to share the responsibility, Comrade Semitic. You and I will keep our necks. Let Comrade Corvin keep his secrets. Comrade Corvin keep his secrets. That's the one thing I can't do. Later that night, I meet Johnson, my FBI contact, and while we're driving around the outskirts of town, report my lack of progress concerning Corvin. Have you anything else to report? The money from all those special assessments made by the State Central Committee has come back to the cell with interest. It's being contributed to Stuart's campaign fund. I don't miss a bet, do they? They're no amateurs, that's a cinch. Has the Bureau worked out that counter scheme yet? Yeah. I don't like it, and neither were you. What is it? Well, it looks as though you're stuck, man. Come on. It's a matter of political values. If this scheme isn't exposed before the Reds it's set the nation will lose a valuable man from public life. And I'm an extendable. Well, I guess the military would call it that. Naturally, we'll give you only protection possible, man. When are you going to break this story? Late Sunday for Monday morning's papers. That way, we'll beat the Commies by about eight hours on every leave. Sunday, this is Thursday night. It gives me Friday and Saturday. Oh, what are you figuring out? Corvin. If I can find out who his contact is the guy he's going to break the story to I can break the story myself. Oh, my phone. I'll call the man and tell him that I'm Corvin and give him the expose with all the details. Yeah. There's only one thing wrong with the idea, Matt. What's that? You don't even know where Corvin is much less the name of his contact. I don't know where Corvin is and I don't dare ask Hobart again. The tough part of it is I can understand the FBI's position particularly after talking with Comrade Hobart the next morning.  Our workers are publicly identified with Senator Stewart. We have receipts for more than $2,000 contributed to his campaign fund and Comrade Corvin reports that his contact in the opposition camp is beginning to take the bait. Well, I hope Corvin plays his hand right. If he puts out too much bait, his fish may bite before we are ready. I had that in mind when I told you that I wanted to know nothing about Comrade Corvin's operation. If anything goes wrong, he'll take the discipline. If anything goes wrong, Corvin will take the discipline, but only if it goes on before Sunday. On Sunday, it'll be mine yet. I'll leave Comrade Hobart to make my check when our party members working for Senator Stewart. If I check, I can fully understand why the FBI has to break the story immediately. The workers themselves, however, don't realize how big a job they've done. I still don't see how this can hurt Stewart, Comrade Sevedic. Now, how can this do him anything but good? You'll be told at the proper time, Comrade. Sure, that's what Comrade Corvin tells me. Every day I ask him, what goes?  You see Comrade Corvin every day? That's what he does for me. Make him into the party, I guess, like he did me. Sure. Uh, you live on Oak Street, don't you? Oak Street? Cedar, 400 block south. As quickly as I can, without a rousing suspicion, I get away from the talkative comrade and go to the 400 block south on Cedar. For five hours, I wait and see nothing. Then, in the middle of the afternoon, I finally spot Comrade Corvin far down the block, though, and I have to get closer to see the street number. I keep my eye on the house as I walk. So, I don't notice anything around me until a heavy hand falls on my shoulder and a voice says, What's your name? What are you doing here? Whenever you have to say, you can tell to the discharge. But what am I supposed to have done? The neighbors complain about suspicious characters lurking around the neighborhood. The other one seems to have got away, but I'm taking you down to the station. I try to break away and make a dash from the street number of the house called an interest, but the policeman is too fast for me. Thinking of the way, I've had my only chance to save myself from the red smashed out of my grasp. I blow my top and I try to fight my way free. But it's no use.  The next thing I really know is that I'm locked in a cell sore and bruised. Finally, hours later, the cop comes back. Yeah. I'm sorry I blew up. Can I use a phone? Well, come on, your lawyer, eh? No, just a friend. Okay. Stand back while I open the door. Walk ahead of me. As quickly as I could, man. I kind of got roughed up. I had it coming to me, but I forgot in the house I was looking for. I haven't, man. Huh? That's another talk, last man. Oh, that cop said there was someone else hanging around who got away. Me? I saw him coming. Anyway, man, I got the address in the name of Corvin's contact. I had a talk with a bureau chief, Matt, and he wants you to make the call and prematurely spill the story of the reds in Senator Stewart. That's great, Johnson, except for one little detail. Oh, what's that? First, you'll have to get me out of jail. The party gave Comet Corvin full credit for the fight against Senator Stewart. I don't know, for certain, what happened to him. I only know that he disappeared and that if I hadn't been lucky it would have been Matt Soverex who disappeared. A communist for the FBI is a man on a tightrope. And on a tightrope, you walk alone. You would be conquerors since the dawn of history. It's the old technique of divide and rule. Don't let it happen here. Although to protect innocent persons, names, dates, and places in this story are fictitious. But danger they warn you against is very real. Next week we'll bring you another strange adventure based on the fantastic experiences of Matt Soverex. Join us then, won't you?


Unidentified gunmen in the early hours of Tuesday have attacked the O'Hafia Office of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. The office is located at Amapu in O'Hafia local government area of Abia State, setting the building ablaze. This is as the office of the Independent National Electoral Commission located in Amapu. O'Hafia was attacked last Sunday, confirming the incident. The state commander of NDLEA, Bami Deli Akimbadi, disclosed that the incident happened around 3 a.m. Tuesday, stating that the office was partially raised. According to him, no suspects were affected as they had earlier been moved out because the location of the office is isolated, adding that no documents were touched as they were inside a fireproof safe. Meanwhile, Abia State government has vowed to arrest the perpetrators. And a pan-Yoruba socio-political organization at Fenifere has expressed concern over the economic and security crisis confronting Nigeria. The LEGO State chairman of the organization, Chief Tunde Onokaya, says the situation calls for immediate reversal to prevent degeneration. Onokaya described the fate of killings of innocent people, armed banditry, kidnappings and all sorts of criminalities in almost all parts of the country. He also condemned the high inflation and rising poverty in the country, calling it an emergency situation.


Hi everyone, Joe for Jaspy's CaseBreaks.com, coming at you with Hit Parade Basketball. NBA Playoff Edition, it's a Jaspy's exclusive six-box random team break number seven. Big thanks to this group for making it happen. Thanks to the people who bought their spots straight up, and congrats to the people who bought into those prism sell-o-pack breaks to try to win their spots. Congrats to the winners. And all 30 teams are in. Let's roll it, let's randomize it Five and a three, eight times for names and teams. One, two, three, four, five, and a three, right? Six, seven, and eight. After eight times, we got Wenschen, down to Wenschen. Five and a three, eight times for the teams. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight. After eight, we've got the Rockets, down to the Kings. All right, Wenschen with the Rockets, Chad B with the Blazers. Darren with the Sun, Steve with the Timberwolves, Scott with the Spurs. Oliver, you got the Knicks. Chad B with the Nuggets, Wenschen with the Bills. Bills, Bulls. William with the Wizards, Wenschen with the Jazz, Eugene with the Thunder. Aaron with the Raptors, Wenschen with the Gris. JC with the Clippers, Chad C with the Pelicans. Wenschen with the Cavs. Kevin with the Pistons, Wenschen, Sixers, and Bucks. Mark with the Nets, Justin with the Mavs. Chad Coleman with my Lakers, Wenschen with the Pacers. Chad C with the Magic. Mark with the Celtics, Chad with the Hornets. Aaron with the Hawks. Simon with the Heat. Steve with the Warriors, and Wenschen with the Sacramento Kings. It's alphabetized by team. And we're in a positive video just for a little bit. Remember, trade at your own risk. Just in these hip parade breaks, as always, trade at your own risk. We're in a positive video. When we come back, we'll see if there's any trades. And then we'll have the break. We'll see you on the other side. All right. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. No deals were done. So the list you saw previously remained the same. Here it is. Hot off the press. Steve at Last Spot, Mojo. The Warriors. Good luck. Good luck, everyone. Now, remember, whether you hit or not, if we get all those requisite breaks done by tomorrow, Monday night, then we've got a shot at break credit as well. Or you can get a nice hit and the break credit. Help us fill those other breaks as well. Details are on JasperysCaseBreaks.com. Excellent. Hit the bell. I want to say, Rex, that, yeah, maybe that trout might have been better off with just selling it on your own. But I think that's great. It's a great time saver, I think, for cards that are probably within, like, the, I don't know, I have to look into a little bit more of it for more details, but, maybe 50 to a couple hundred dollar range, maybe.  The first one out of the gate is an SGA. Triple Relic and Autograph. 146 out of 149. It's got the Clippers. That's going to be JC. Is that a rookie SGA? It's 1819? No, I don't think so. But it's still Clippers edition. Still nice. I was looking at something. I think over the weekend did someone announce something? No, maybe it's kind of buried in the headlines now, but I think the NBA is starting to look at is starting to look at different ideas for the NBA all-star game. Just a complete revamp. What do you think they should do? Nice Jalen Green rookie Otto from Prison Basketball. That is Wen Shun with the Rockets. A flag basketball game. How would that work? Jilo. All right, we've got, ooh, nice one for the Thunder. Origins on-card rookie Otto Jalen Williams. Santa Clara edition Jalen Williams. And that's going to be for Eugene. 25 out of 35 right there. Hippie Smith says, instead of all-stars, have an all rookie game featuring the best new talent. They already have that. I think that's the night before the all-star game or a couple nights before. There's like a first year versus second year game. Next one is nice Kauai Leonard. Game more material. 22 out of 25. Folks, we do have flawless basketball in the store if you want to chase after stuff like this. 2013, 2014, that's rookie Kauai Leonard. Nice. That is for Scott and the Spurs. One that's bought in the filler. They wear flags and each bucket is worth seven points. So what happens when you pull the flag? Next up is... Ja Merant. 2019 Hoops premium stock shimmer short print. PSA 10. Ja Merant. That's for Memphis. That's going to be for... It's going to be for Wen Shun. You don't know where you're going.  I was just going to say it sounds like wreck. It's just shoe horning in. Just shoe horning in a shoe horning in a joke. Just trying to mash up something without really thinking it through. Rex is thinking how instead of voting in players you have those best stats so it's not a popularity content. I don't mind that because you know I think NBA always wants or the sports always want to put it like a fan element into it. But I'm just like, come on. Who cares what the fans think? Let's just go by the numbers. It's Jordan Poole. Rated rookie hollow. PSA 10. Nice. That goes to... That goes to Steve Herrick and the Warriors. Guess what? Last spot mojo strikes again. 70% of the time. Last spot mojo hits 100% of the time. There you go gang. Another nice hit parade break in the books. I'm Joe for jaspyscasewrakes.com. I'll see you next time for the next one. Bye.


Let me tell you this now Frank first of all welcome back to the real world, right? But the one thing I want you to do Don't lie to God, bro.  Mm-hmm. I'm gonna do that I'm gonna do this. I ain't doing that no more.  I'm predictable.  And and we and us being OGs we understand that you say, you know, I'm awesome different. I'm thinking about but Anytime French or Luca or his wife or even your homies Tell you as a reminder Accept it because they supposed to remind you Because we all got them little demons in us that could come out at any time You feel what I'm saying so fight. So it's just a reminder. Damn dog. We on the right track Let's not slip and if one of them homies that surround you that should appear Can't check you Then you ain't real so fight because I could check this at any time And he could check me at any time If we ever out of pocket dog we out of here get the truck bro. The is you doing you got to get in the truck Feel what I'm saying. So I just want to put that on you. You know what I mean because you're young And you won't be in places. That's dangerous man Rapid some of the most dangerous you could be a part of so You go ahead and lick in you you're getting 70,000 a night hundred thousand 150 some get 350 Get a million dollars young thug showed us a check for a million dollars for rolling loud mm-hmm, so You got to understand you got to move right. I Can't be getting high. I can't be places. I'm I'm in the middle of talking and that's important and I'm not north this the month that own a Mother in anything he could he could give me a million dollar endorsement deal right now three million dollars five million dollars I'm talking to him and you got to be sturdy. He was just a Michael Rubin party. You don't know who's who Well, it could be from New York with a whole fill of money came from the same Neighborhood you came from now you own this and he just like damn. I like this kid. I just want to So everybody you got to behave. What's up, man? How you doing? What's your name? Nice to meet you. Hey, you can't be like that when you're fried Fill me. That's a fight It's a fight


boys Shall we commence? Shall we commence? 41 icon moments packs you crazy. Oh I think we're going again boys here. I don't even know what to say Let's commence boys 41 icon moments packs. We're gonna start with pack 30. Let's go You can recycle the first two in SBCs. They are ready for one icon each got you. I will love to recycle, bro I would love to recycle Germany first one Starting off with a w Yeah, we plan that boys. Well, I told foot economist to hit the I told foot economist to hit the layman button All right, I had him hit the layman button The impatient accountant. What do you mean impatient? Oh, we got a boards from a two-player pack a team of the season From a two-player pack from rinsing Hendo Okay. All right. I had my hopes set high. Who's this? Whiteman. All right, dude, at least we got a tots card. Look. Oh Let's go. All right boys. Let's roll When and why did this guy get in packs Hashtag best of packs for this promo man French center mid Bruh Discarding golds we discard icons, bro. I'll see you in the flip side. Well, it sounds good All right, French center mid Dutch center forward.  That's right, dude. Sometimes may be good. Sometimes maybe Got to so I Like Taco Bell. No, I don't really talk about man English yo, we might as well just skip it right here right now Yikes Portugal icons dude, we don't want Portugal man. He's already got you sebio. He's already got you sebio I think I would honestly say public accounting is a pretty easy industry to get into if you're getting an accounting degree There's a lot of people that go into public accounting right away. There's a lot of jobs there. That's all I'll say about that That's also in the United States Let's go. It's Tommy and center back kind of arrow. Let's go. He already has Maldini, man That's big That is big We move Let's go He can now have a Italian duo in the back with Maldini and kind of arrow Please tell me it's not a duplicate Alano, you got it dude. Have I tried Madden 21? No No, man. I'm not My heart dude same right same, bro Can I skip one you want me to do a skip pack? Even do a skip icon moments pack. Oh, no, no, don't you we're not doing this again? Okay, all right. It's not it's not a we're not going back to back boys All right, we're not going back to backs that is good This account sometimes has a tendency to go back to back and sometimes back to back The back of you three in a row. All right Why do we Italian bro? Why do we want Italian change the flag, please? I beg you sports foot economist hit the button Hit the button brother please Another dupe another dupe man another dupe. All right, let's go back to the rear back to the rear we go You forgot about him. I think there's four Italian center back icons, right Maldini kind of arrow Nesta and Boresi right I'll skip the next pack. All right lads.  No, bro I'm not even watching the rest of that one dude rush probably a dupe. Oh, it's not a dupe. Let's go w W it's not a dupe five-star weak foot could be insane if messy joins name on a bop a good. Yep. That's true true true Bro do a skip pack. All right.  This is a skip pack. We're skipping the pack per request in the chat. What's it gonna be?  Oh, yes, we love a little skip pack Michael Owen That was Garbo. Okay icon moments player. We have 30 to go or 29 to go 30 to go Do a nose pack like we're in FIFA 14. I can do a nose pack. Sure, bro.  Okay Hey, David. What's up, man? Welcome to Shreem. Okay pack seven and a nose pack five six seven. Here we go Here we go Little pack seven action Nose pack I was told this is gonna guarantee me an R9 moments. Yeah, R9 moments. Here he is Unbelievable man. Yeah, that's the flag you want to see even better. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, even better Okay, we're gonna take a break from the icon packs since we can't get sheet at the moments We're gonna pack a 92 plus Tots player. All right, let's go EA sports Let's go EA sports of almost Let's go. He probably already has him untradable in his club, but that's a good pull right there, man Ramos It's probably a duplicate It's probably a duplicate W must be a dupe. Yeah, his reaction wasn't that positive Imagine not being stoked for a 96 Sergio Ramos arguably the best center back in the game.  All right pack five I got you. I got you. Have I packed Tots on? Yes on my own account. I did man. Yes I'm missing the shades. Do I need the shades on for this pack opening, bro? It's center attacking mid.  It's about Freakin time that this man gets a pack that he deserves. Let's go Let's go. That's a three million coin card.  He cares, bro Heck. Yeah. He cares moments Vieira Let's go man You love to freaking see it bang Six foot four medium-high work rates a Very popular center back in game for a lot of people right now in the game. He says I care. Let's go Moments Vieira slot him in. Yikes back to normal. We go back to normal. We go. Okay. Come on. Come on. Let's go French again bruh bruh Carlos Alberto at Steve facts, bro Roberto Carlos is kind of rare, but Carlos Alberto is actually very rare That's facts dude. Good point My next pack will be a South American. That's Germany. That's not South America center mid I think he already has Matthias. Could this be Balak? Let's go. I hope that this is not a duplicate for him because I want him to say W. He's got both Oh, no, he's already got both of them lads That's an L What's the best way to craft icons 82 to 88 man and just spam them over and over and over if you got time Yo If he doesn't have them already, that's a W. That's a big one. Let's go man dog leash Get in That's a win. Yo dog leash and Vieira in like the past what five packs. Let's go man Get Balak as well. Do the pack look is in how many coins has he spent roughly do all these?  What's up? Good to see you. All right. We're still hunting for Brazil striker. Okay Stoikov Now that's a flag you recognize right away and you know who you're getting Not bad He's got the three star though. All right. I think we have what like 13 left. Is that I'm gonna we had left? Brazil strikers what we need dude. We haven't seen the Brazil flag at all today, dude And we've had a 40 we got 40 of these made dude. We haven't seen the Brazil flag, bro Bro Pack three for Cruyff Thomas pack three if it's Cruyff gifted sub for you, bro. All right How many dupe until now do we've had a lot of dupes, but that's how it is in this account, bro You know the vibes Dutch center forward Seed or I Mean a W for most but an L for us Unfortunately Let's go come on EA sports brazil striker brazil striker. Let's go Vamos That's not Brazil Okay, we got a striker at least right no, it's not good close up get on my face Boys we have one pack What it's not a duplicate W. We have one pack This guy just did it 40. He came to the stream the share play with 40 40 Icon moments upgrades. Okay, we're walking away with Vera dog leash and a lot of freaking duplicates. Okay Can we please EA sports press the button foot economist brazil striker? That's what we want Let's go it. There's a lot resting on this pack. It's Brazil Deenio deenio deenio.  I mean I mean I mean it's okay I think he already has him. I think it's a duplicate But it's okay. It was very close. It was very close We got the brazil Man this close bro this close. I will leave that in his unassigned blue magic again. Hey clappers Clappers boys 40 icon pack this guy rolled the stream up with men 40 icon packs We got him Vera. We got him dog leash and a lot of duplicates some notable duplicates kaka Canavaro um Nakata twice I think right Yo Balak exactly dude, right Balak as well Overall I mean not too bad. It's just unfortunate all these are duplicates for your club man All right blue magic. Thank you for the share play. I appreciate it greatly my dude. Thank you, man you


As people, we have options. We choose where to place our attention. Welcome to the We Are Slam show where we share marketing agency insights, best practices, and ideas to help your business grow. My name is Tyler Kelly. I am the co-founder and chief strategist at Slam Agency. We have offices in St. Louis, Missouri and Miami, Florida, servicing clients all over the world. And today we're going to talk about inbound marketing, content marketing, what these things mean, how they work together, and how you can use them to drive real business results on your website. Now, a lot of the content that I'll be sharing today comes from this book that I'm a huge fan of. It's called They Ask, You Answer. And this book really, I think, is the definitive. And there's a lot of amazing books on the subject, but I think it's one of the definitive books on inbound marketing, on content marketing. And this book was written by an agency owner named Marcus Sheridan, one of the thought leaders in this space, the space that we know as inbound marketing. So what is inbound marketing? Well, it's easy to define. It's the process of attracting rather than chasing customers. Now, in the old world of marketing and advertising, you had what was what some refer to as this bullhorn, right? This bullhorn that you're just like blasting your message to the masses. And your objective is to interrupt people and then try to sell them your product or service by way of repetition. That's advertising. That's the old world. And it just doesn't necessarily work anymore. And the reason being is that as people, we have options, we can turn off commercials. We can fast forward through commercials. We choose where to place our attention, whether it be on our mobile devices or on our computers or TVs. And a lot of times we're multitasking. So what might have been like the best option 50 years ago in terms of advertising, which is like a television commercial is not having the effect it once had in terms of repetition because we're multitasking. So there's a lot of things that are not necessarily ideal when it comes to this idea, this old world idea of outbound marketing. So inbound marketing is the act of attracting customers rather than chasing them. So what is content marketing? Content marketing is the act of teaching and problem solving in order to earn your buyer's trust. Now we talk a lot about knowing your buyer. And if you don't know your buyer, then this next part isn't going to make sense because you have to know, what are my customers thinking? If you know your buyer, then you're able to educate them and solve their problems in a way that earns their trust through content. So here's an example that Marcus uses in the book. And it's the example of CarMax and how they really came onto the scene in a way that was more about earning their trust of used cars buyers as opposed to just doing business as usual, just following the status quo. So think about it for a minute. 20 years ago, pre CarMax, what was the process? What was the experience as a buyer and buying a used car? If you bought cars back then, then what you know is that going to a lot and buying a used car was not a very fulfilling experience. There was always this idea that I was going to get ripped off, or maybe I was going to buy a lemon and really I just didn't enjoy like going as a buyer to the car lot and haggling with somebody over price, right? And then at the end of the day, maybe I buy the car and then I'm regretting my decision. So these were all problems that I had as a buyer, I being the used car buyer of that time, that CarMax number one understood because they did their research and they knew their buyers being the used car buyers. They knew the types of thoughts and emotions and feelings that were going on inside their heads. And as a result, they're like, okay, this is what's going on inside their heads. This is how they feel. And now we need to do something about that. So what did they do? They introduced several things. Number one, no haggle pricing, which means that whatever price they listed is the price that you would pay. If the car was listed at $25,000 and all you had to pay was $24,999, then guess what? You wouldn't be able to buy the car because it's no haggle pricing. The price that is listed is the price that you pay. Secondly, they instituted a flat commission structure. What does this mean? Essentially, this flat commission structure meant that you sell a car regardless of the price and you get this commission. And so what this did was it allowed buyers to begin to trust the salespeople to do what was best for them, knowing that they weren't going to just push a higher car in order to make a little bit more money. They also instituted number three, a five day buyback guarantee. That meant if you left a lot with the car, you signed the contract, and then within five days you started to get remorse, maybe it wasn't the decision for you, maybe you just wanted to return the car. Then guess what? They allow you to do that. They also began to, if you're on site, walk customers through their inspection process. Back then, nobody was really talking about, on the used car lot, the inspections that the cars would go through. So CarMax made it a point to walk every buyer through the process. Okay, this is important. Walking them through the process. Here's what happens when we buy a car. We inspect it. Here's the things we look for. Here are the things that we replace and fix and how these cars measure up to our standards. That's important. Thank content. That's important. The process. What's the process that I go through? Number five, they were the first to offer vehicle history reports. Today, this is just something that every dealership does, every used car dealership does. You want to see, you know, where the car has been, who's owned it, you know, what state it's been in, has there been any repairs or, you know, accidents that the car has been in. All of this stuff is something that pre-CarMax just wasn't available to the buyer. And post-CarMax, it's everywhere. And then finally, they've offered the Kelly Blue Book value with every listening. This was something that also was not done on a regular basis with used car lots. And they really transformed the way that people sell cars because guess what? The KBB, the Kelly Blue Book value, is listed now. And it's a household name. It's listed now everywhere you go, right? So why did they do this? They did this because they wanted to educate and solve problems in order to earn by your trust. And as I told you in the beginning, this is the essence of content marketing. Number one, understanding your buyer in a way that you're able to educate, teach them, and solve their problems through content in order to earn their trust. You know, 70% of all buyers already have their mind made up about you, about the product or service that they need to buy before they even land on your website. So how can you as a marketing director, business owner, VP of marketing founder, how can you begin to create content that educates and content that solves problems in order to earn buyer trust for your customers and your buyers? Well, here's how. Marcus Sheridan in the book calls it the big five. Number one, pricing and cost. You have to talk about what costs go into your pricing and how your pricing is determined, whether it's for a product or a service. This is important because if you know your buyer, you know that they're going to Google and they're searching for this type of information. If I'm on your site and I click the pricing tab and all I see is like contact sales or contact for more information, guess what? I'm leaving your site as a buyer and I'm going to go somewhere, whether it's an inferior product or service or not, that shares with me the information that I'm looking for, which is pricing. Number two, problems. You have to address any potential problems that your buyers might come across with your product or service. So as a marketing director, you know what problems are consistently being asked about. And so what do you do? Turn these problems, turn these weaknesses that your brand has into strengths. You do this through content by getting out in front of the story. Number three, versus and comparisons. These are important. You see this all over the internet now, but it's still very important. This product versus this product. Give me an honest assessment. Your product versus the competition. I want to know. I want to see that comparison. I want the checklist. That's the type of content that you should be creating in order to educate and to create buyer trust by solving their problems. Here's the thing though, you have to be honest. It has to be an honest comparison. If there's certain areas where your product or service doesn't measure up, be honest about that. Your buyer is going to find out. If you're the first one to tell them, guess what? You're earning buyer trust. And finally, number four and five, reviews and best in class. If you're a thought leader in your industry, then you should be saying, okay, here's a review of the products or services in my industry. And here is what I think you as a buyer should be doing for this use case or this use case. Think about like the motor trends car that you report. This is a publication that has established thought leadership in this space. So they're able to create that list. Another really cool thing that you could be doing in your business is highlighting all of the other companies that are doing things well, put them in a list and then create an article that says, listen, this company is really amazing because of these things. This company is really amazing because of these things. Our company is really amazing because of these things. Remember, you can't be all things to all people. So really highlight the areas that you are amazing at and highlight the areas where the competition is amazing. Guess what? This builds trust and I guarantee you will increase sales for your business because you're the one offering this information in order to earn by your trust. That's content marketing and it's really the way that we should do inbound marketing. It's no longer this game of push, push, push, interrupt, interrupt, interrupt. It's more about how can we attract customers through relevant content, content that earns their trust. That's the show for today. If you enjoyed it, be sure to let me know in the comments wherever you are, subscribe, rate and review. And if you want to learn more about this, they ask you to answer process or more about content marketing and inbound marketing. If this is something that your company is looking to do, guess what? Slam Agency is a full service marketing agency that really comes from this place of inbound and the power of inbound. Just go to slamagency.com and click free consultation and you'll be connected directly to me and we'll have a conversation. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next week. If you like what you just watched, subscribe, then hit that bell. 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Okay, very good morning to you Anthony Chung here. I'm the head of market analysis and fight trading If you go to my Twitter account, so my handle a WM Chung You'll be able to find the latest macro menu. I've pinned it to the top of my my latest tweets But as you can see it's a lot of stuff I'm talking about this morning is in regards to North America and the potential Tracking of the second or the size of the second wave of the coronavirus in America There's also been developments in Beijing over the weekend Japan as well has seen a pick up over the weekend And so this is definitely what's dominating market psyche at the European Open this week Also, if you are watching this On YouTube and you wanted to get the morning briefings earlier then check out amplify live I'll put a link in the description of this video if you want to have a look and to get that and more other Exclusive content before everyone else does that's the place to go But having a look then at the charts this morning. Let's just discuss then how things are performing at the Commencement of trade and as you can see we've had a gap down in the US equity index futures This has come as I said with focus still on the second wave risk Emerging with the increase in the trajectory of the coronavirus rates in various different areas in America Which we'll have a look at in a moment But as you can see here from the the Dow to the SMP these charts here breaking through quite key Technical levels the the chart somewhat mirroring each other to some extent because if I just remove that horizontal line You can see here in the S&P 500 the gap down and the overnight Opening test that we had on the low on Friday, which is around that s1 level So I just put a support level there and you can see as Europe has come in early We've broken through that level but now pretty similar setup But here you've got Thursday and Friday low the reopening low So on the fourth attempt really and through that s1 on the daily pivots We've had a run down to now just kind of settle At around the s2 but already down about 837 points here this morning in the downs so it's a pretty pretty heavy move in that respect And as you would imagine then that's generally being reflected in the other asset classes The dollar has been rising of late and that's putting a little bit of moderate downside pressure in the major pairs perhaps a little bit of discrepancy between Euradollar left and cable a couple of cable headlines to be aware of you've got the recommencement of top-level talks between European Commission and Boris Johnson Taking place later on today and obviously coming closer towards that looming deadline and a lot of the weekend press suggesting of the UK pursuing its kind of Push to accelerate negotiations or to face the risk of a no deal has been the talk And then elsewhere T-notes up around nine and a half ticks where we're just above the high that we've seen in the Asia Pacific session oil lower as you would imagine kind of tracking in step with the ramifications that a covid pickup would have in a second wave form for global growth potential so not just equities oil also lower and Retesting at the minute around the load it was seen on Friday. The only asset that isn't really Reflecting this general risk of sentiment is gold Don't have too much of an explanation for that to be quite honest with you right now technically we're Below the s1 we've seen a bit of a downfall as Europe has come into the market perhaps then now we've got a fairly strong level of potential Resistance now on any recovery that we might see but of course when the US come in and if things do trade quite heavy The logical response would be that would provide a bit of supportive tone for gold But now any push back up to a wards Really the s1 and then just above around 27 to encapsulate some of that previous high and low from last week's price activity Could be something to watch as well So let's have a look then at this story that's been in development over the weekend and gonna kick off things with a Map here of hotspots in the United States of America and what we're looking out We're looking at here is a map of America by Different states and the color code key is blue where coronavirus cases over a two-way period of declining and red The more deeper darker the red color the more it's rising and as you can see here. There are a number of highly Populated areas which are seeing quite a distinct pickup and in fact more than 20 US states did see a pickup in cases over the weekend Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina all experienced record increases in coronavirus during the past three days and so Here are some of those key areas of which caused the catalyst for the sell-off on Thursday if you remember Which was really these these big significant areas as far as the economic situation of America is concerned And which is causing some to kind of reprice these assets for then What had to be in a fairly smooth process of reopening the economy was fairly limited new cases has now started to see quite a More steeper curve of infections materializing so here California, Texas, Florida, obviously very much in focus Arizona being another one which has seen a very Steep incline Florida is one of those and we've seen photos on Saturday. I think Miami Beach was just packed the weekend Florida they reported 75,658 COVID-19 cases on Sunday That's up 2.7% from a day earlier can compared with an average of 2.3% over the previous Seven days and so as it was last week, it will remain now and in the coming days Really important to keep a very close eye on these daily Rates that come out now from recollection last week when it gets London time to around the afternoon sort of 2 or 3 o'clock That's when we start to see updates from each daily kind of stamp If you like if you think about it in North American hours, that's first thing in the morning They issue them the previous day's logging of infection rates and really you're looking at the increase of that figure Over then the seven-day kind of average and at the moment that has been going on a steady Incline in some of these key areas and that could be a trigger point then depending on how big those jumps are For another negative run or impact on markets The other thing that's happening is not just in America in Beijing. There's been quite a distinct Pickup in the fact that what was shut at the weekend was the city's largest fruit and vegetable supply center What it's led to is locking down nearby neighboring housing districts as a dozens of people associated with a wholesale market tested positive for the virus now What's always problematic in China is just how densely populated it is and To give you an idea this market in question. It's not like the farmers markets You'll get on a Sunday afternoon in Britain this market covers a hundred and twelve hectares and has 1500 management personnel and over 4,000 tenants so it's huge and just given the nature of this this spread and there's been some talk as well That could cause complications that some of the latest strains of which they've been testing could show that that actually this is This has been brought in as well to some extent with some European movement back into the country Has caused complications and China are not taking any risks They're looking to shut down things as quickly as possible to regain control, but just given the But the development and the potential for this to spread quite quickly This again is kind of in combination with those US figures is what's causing some of the nervousness in markets this morning elsewhere globally Although places like New York and London continue to be fairly contained If anything have seen some of the lowest cases that we've had ever since the onset of the outbreak places like Japan for example have seen a jump over the weekend So it's a little bit of a mix but very much more dominated by the fact that if you think about the UK They're a little bit behind in regards to we're only just about to go into a reopening of say Non-essential retail shops today on June 15th And so these other countries have already kind of are further down that reopening route And so therefore they're kind of further down this kind of second case virus, so that's definitely What's driving sentiment and what will probably dictate proceedings if I'm not just today, but throughout the entire week One thing to be aware of with equity index features down already quite heavy the S&P down over 3% If you go on my Twitter account, I've really shared basically a tweet from new squawk which have put out the Circuit breakers the limit downs for globe x trade So here the 5% if I go to the S&P first, we're trading this morning At 2929 now the the session lows at 2923 and three quarters The 5% stop comes in basically at 2888 so a little bit further to go as yet But worse bearing that in mind if we get to that 5% limit down and then once we go into the The nizy in the open Then here are the respective level one two and three increments with the the levels for both the S&P The Nasdaq and the Dow probably worth having those jotted down on a piece of paper In case things do get quite volatile to the downside later on in the session Other things to be aware of for this week We do have an EU leaders gathering virtually at least at the end of the week culminating on discussions on Friday Well, they'll look to debate the recovery fund to repair the COVID-19 damage that we've seen in the eurozone And the main thing that people are looking at here is this the kind of meat and bones around this 750 billion euro European wide recovery fund this Few weeks ago and as you can see on this chart here I've got the yellow which we've seen as the real distinct pick up in euro dollar Now what that had been before last week's nervousness on the second wave had been a reversal of the risk premium in the flight To quality in the dollar following what we had seen through March And so dollar weakness was promoting some euro strength by default But over delivery from ECB in the QE program a second large unexpected stimulus coming out of Germany And then this kind of Franco-German plan for a rescue fund Then the intensive agreement on the European wide basis had seen the euro really outperform so This week's going to be quite important because now we need to see really the facts and figures of what does this deal consist of And obviously the frugal four Netherlands Austria Denmark and Sweden Will be the ones to watch and they're going to be resistant at the final hurdle to getting this deal over the line And so what would be some susceptible is not just the euro dollar currency given some of the recent market positioning But also southern european bonds So the red line here is looking at what we have seen over the last real six weeks Is generally the tightening of the german The italian german tending a bond yield spread indicative of more I guess confidence about the the future but any fall down Of this european wide Fiscal deal would see then more pressure Coming onto those bonds the respective yields would rise which could blow out those spreads and friday It's going to be quite a a key day for monitoring those for sure Um sticking with europe But with the uk kind of thrown in Boris johnson returns to brexit with the aim of firing up faltering talks So the p.m. Will say that while the uk still wants a free trade agreement with the eu It isn't afraid to walk away at the end of the year without one This is what a lot of the uk press was suggesting at the weekend So as far as the meetings that are happening today prime minister and eu officials holding a teleconference call I would not be expecting any kind of concrete developments to materialize as soon as now I would say it's still pretty much setting out the Root that they're on which is for the uk I think it's still really a little bit early perhaps then Toward the deadline at the end of the month for the transition But what it's looking more likely at this point is that they're not going to press a transition That we're going to push through and some of the reports today have said that if discussions can make progress in july and august And wrap up in september eu leaders could be asked to ratify a deal at their scheduled summit in october So that's the kind of timeline of which the uk government apparently is working to at this point of time which does mean then that There is still A risk of a no deal materializing and you you could see a bit of an increase in the in In some weight for the british pound as we get towards the end of this month As then we've not inaction that request for a transition Just increases the still a base on expectation that some kind of deal might get done But obviously we've removed one of those kind of Obstacles that could have caused a more positive reaction if the uk had agreed to extend by another two years or not All right the other things to be aware of a couple of Interest rate decisions now we do have some uk data coming out throughout the week you get retail sales Unemployment numbers inflation numbers So we get a good economic kind of health check out of the uk and this of course comes after the disastrous kind of april gdp reality That we had and so given that and given the types of language that we've seen from this chap The governor andrew bailey just last week who basically said he's ready to take further action All expectations are that the bank of england will increase their quantitative easing program The expectation From quite a few banks is around 150 billion pounds That would then buy them enough a few months given the pace of purchasing that they're doing at the at the moment Enough enough months further down the road in order to see just how this plays out In terms of the economic recovery at this point and also the significance or not of the secondary wave virus And so rather than doing these kind of short-term gap fills in policy if you like And then that's going to make the market kind of increasingly nervous at every review Probably better they go for something like 150 to just kind of kick the can down the road a couple of months And then and then revise things as they see fit Further down the line. So, yeah bank of england I guess if they don't do that if they don't increase their QE by that type of magnitude Then that's when it could be an interesting event from a trading perspective Because there'll be a lot of people disappointed At that point in time if they don't pull the trigger and increase by that kind of amount Boj they've also got an interest rate decision. However I'm not expecting a great deal here Officials likely to consider the impact of measures taken so far according to people from a little bit of matter reported in Bloomberg this morning So anticipated to leave their main policy kind of levers untouched as it were Quickly having a look at the calendar I've pretty much covered over all of the major things We did have some Chinese data overnight Retail sales industrial output were marginally weaker than expectations in may albeit a slight improvement from the prior month Other interesting data you've got coming out of the states You've got us retail sales coming on Tuesday You get your regular weekly jobless claims still going to be somewhat elevated But albeit on that downward trajectory We've had over recent weeks But that comes alongside the Philly Fed business index we'll get on thursday U. S building permits housing starts will come on wednesday So yeah a few things to to keep an eye out on Throw in the mix as well quadruple witching which we'll get towards the end of the week So if people are still somewhat nervous About the development of the virus particularly in north america I could see quite a volatile End to the week at that point if you throw in the fact of those explorations in options of futures Um, so that's it any questions at all feel free to Leave a comment on the video obviously this morning as far as markets are concerned We are Awaiting now the u.s. Entrance to see where they take this market Just given some of the overnight and european movement that we've had as far as the s&p is concerned From a longer time frame here on a daily continuation, you know, interestingly Last week's sell-off that we had and then the friday volatility We did manage to close above the 200 day moving average But the gap down the reopening of trade just given some of the weekend's news We came back up to test that same level before then pushing down here And now that we've made a concerted move beneath that 200 dma and that resistance point in the april may kind of resistance area Then the next logical target might well be down at that 2903 Which if seen pre-market opening hours, which is also that low on the 22nd of may Then that circuit breaker resides just below the 29 marker 28 88 So yeah could be in for an interesting start to the week for sure And all eyes and ears remain On the updates on the trajectory of the coronavirus in america in several key states All right guys, that's it from me. I'm going to wish you a good day and week ahead and I'll see you tomorrow. Thanks very much