That's right. This tool broadcasting system presents the Mysterious Traveler, written, produced and directed by Robert A. Arthur and David Colton, starring one of radio's foremost actors, Cliff Carpenter, in Murder in 2952. This is the Mysterious Traveler inviting you to join me on another journey into the realm of the brains and the terrifying. If you will enjoy the trip, that it will thrill you a little and cheer you a little. So settle back, get a good grip on your nerves and be comfortable, if you can, as we leap a thousand years into the future to see how the forces of crime and detection may operate then.  The date, the year 2952. Mankind has colonized the planet Venus and Mars, and is mining uranium on Mercury, while making trips of exploration to the more inhospitable celestial bodies, Saturn, Neptune, and the moons of Jupiter. But still, life is not so different from life today. There are still men and women, which means love, jealousy, hatred. And there are still crimes and criminals, which means a police force. People still live in houses, even though they're very different from the ones we know. In the living room of one of these houses, a young woman is playing an ancient trick called an ancient musical instrument to an appreciative audience of one. John Malawan, a field researcher for the World Biological Institute. What in the world is it? It's so different from the music I'm used to. It's at least a thousand years old, maybe older. I found this score in the musical section of the Library of Congress. You play it very well. Oh, I'm glad you think so. I hope Randy will like it. Randy Morgan? He doesn't go in much for music, does he? Randy doesn't go in for music at all. I wish he did. But it's just because he's never been exposed to it. He'll learn to like it yet. Any man would if you played it for him. I wish I could be here for the music competition. Nobody else will have anything like that thousand-year-old tune of yours. What's it called? Leave it, John. In one of the old languages, that's supposed to mean love's dream. Well, if Randy doesn't appreciate it, I'll personally blast him down. He'll be at the competition to hear you play, won't he? Oh, yes. He's promised, even though he hates music. I do wish he enjoyed something besides catching criminals. Well, that's his job. After all, he's the lieutenant of the world police in the planetary division. Yes, I know, but if only he didn't seem to enjoy it so much. Catching murderers and base pirates and... I'm being silly. He's nice. Sure he is. Also very handsome. Yes, he is, isn't he? Well, John, you'll be much longer if I'm getting short. Your dad is waiting for you. I'll be right in, sir. Guess I've got to say goodbye for a few months. I'll miss you, John. You've always had so much fun. Do be careful, won't you?  I'll be careful. You know, there's a very rare plant growing there. It may do something for the one disease we can't cure. Old age. Well, give my best to Randy when you see him. Well, if you're gonna need me, John, I'm leaving the field clear for Lieutenant Randolph Morgan to marry my daughter. Well, I guess that's how it is, Professor Fergus. She's in love with him. He's in love with an illusion, John. An illusion six feet tall, broad shoulder, beautiful teeth. An illusion that can dance to the Venusian jump perfectly. She thinks the illusion is a man. It's a very convincing illusion, Professor Fergus. Randy Morgan is everything that I'm not. I can't blame Trina for preferring him.  Intelligent, skinny, stooped shoulder, near sighted, and twice the man, Randy Morgan. Well, thank you, Professor, but... I don't think you're being quite fair to Randy. After all, I... You know all about Morgan, John. I tell Trina, but women are one thing that haven't changed in the last thousand years. When they think they're in love, the devil himself can't convince them that they're wrong about a man. Well, I hope she's not wrong, sir. If I thought there was a chance for me... but I know there's not. I'm not so sure. What if Morgan were out of the way? What do you mean, sir? I've been quietly investigating. I have some facts that would get him dismissed from the service. Maybe jailed. The one thing he's a dream apple addict. Randy eats Martian dream apples? Can't be, sir. By those things, they're worse than heroin or cocaine. I have the proof. Sir John, Randy Morgan may be removed from the scene after all. Professor Fergus... Yes, John? Take my word for it.  She'll believe all the evidence was framed. Framed? That old word meaning falsified. She's in love. You yourself said a woman in love can believe no wrong about a man. Nevertheless, I'm going to the authorities. So, John, if you could possibly stay on earth for a few weeks. I wish I could. The reason I'm getting me won't wait. I have to blast off tonight. Goodbye, sir. I'll be back as soon as I possibly can. 39,308 meters per second. And it's the after that trajectory of beta over 3. And the force field curve of the... Professor Fergus? John, you've come back, but where? No. No! This is my final transcribe report on my 47th day in the Scandinavian jungle. I'm almost ready to blast off. But an hour ago, a small police rocket sat down in the dense jungle about half a mile away. And now I see a man approaching. He seems familiar. He looks like... Why, it's Randy Morgan. I hide out. What do you mean? He's a very clever old man. He's taken me five weeks to track you down in this planetary jungle. What do you mean, track me down? I'm here on an official mission. That's what I mean by very clever. It gave you the perfect excuse for hiding in a rotten jungle. Randy, are you waggy? I'm not hiding. Oh, no. Most murderers do hide, you know. Murderers? Listen, Randy, I'm officially placing you under arrest for the murder of Professor Fergus just before you blasted off from Earth. Professor Fergus murdered? If this is some kind of a joke... This stun gun is no joke. Make a move to resist and I'll paralyze you. You're crazy.  I warned you. Don, you can see and hear, but you can't move. I'm bringing my patrol rocket over here and loading you on board. You're going back to Earth with me in chains. And I rather think that you'll wind up in the old-fashioned death chamber for committing willful murder. Who take every muscle in my body? Coming out of it, are you? Those are muscle cramps from the stun gun paralysis, John, in case you've never had them before. Oh, I never have. Suppose you've dealt them out often, though? A few hundred times, that's all. Here's something to make you forget your troubles. Catch! What is it? Just a little fresh fruit. Make you feel better. Fresh fruit? It's one pound of dynamite. This is a Martian Dream Apple. So what? It'll take away your ache, make you feel like a million credit. Here, I'm having one, see? Wouldn't harm a baby. So Professor Fergus was right.  Oh, Fergus was in his second childhood. By the way, what was your motive for killing him? For killing him. Randy, what is this all about? Is Professor Fergus really dead? You should know you're bashed in his head with a rocket control lever from your own rocket. That's nonsense. He was fine when I left him. Now, what happened? Keep it up, John. It's a good impersonation of innocence. But all the same, that chain around your ankle doesn't get unlocked until we blast in on Earth. Very ingenious way to keep me confined. I can't quite reach you. Or the rocket control board. But I still have some freedom.  All right, I'm not going to make any fuss. Now, tell me what happened. Well, half an hour after you went into her father's library, Trina heard a groan and a thaw. She hurried in and there was the poor old boy dead on the floor.  I had a date to see her, fortunately, and I took charge of the case. I can just see it. Amazing how you just happened to be there. Very lucky, wasn't it? Now, Fergus was dead, but I had some of our technical crew bring over our finest instruments. With the atomic pressure recorder, we analyzed the stresses still present in the molecules of the air in the room. We were able to reconstruct Fergus' last words before he died. And what were they? I took off a recording and brought it along so you'd see that your case was hopeless. Here, I'll play it for you. Here you have it, John. Testimentary evidence by the victim himself to your guilt.  How did you make him think it was I? Well, John, I don't know what you mean. You go in for amateur theatrical. It gives you a chance to show off that handsome physique. Easy for you to imitate my voice well enough to fool a deaf old man. A pretty weak defense, John. You'll really have to do better than that. He did have evidence that would get you court-martialed so you'd kill him.  My John, you know we are absolutely incorruptible. Until you start using dream apples, after that the ordinary rules don't apply. Dream apples remove all moral sense, give delusions of grandeur, and eventually cause hopeless insanity. They're perfectly harmless as you'll see when you eat that one I gave you. I'll never eat it, Randy. I think you will. It's a three-week trip back to Earth, and you're getting nothing else to eat or drink. By the time we blast in, you'll want nothing else. It won't work. I'll hold out. Against hunger maybe, but not against thirst. Two days from now you'll eat it. After all, why not?  You've constructed a very tight case against me, haven't you? I think it'll hold up. The burger is dying words, and the weapon, which we found in the bushes between the house and your rocket. Your spare rocket control handle. Which you must have stolen. But one thing you haven't got, that's a motive. John, by the time we hit Earth, you're going to be a confirmed dream apple addict. And dream apple addicts don't need motives. Remember? Give me a drink of water. I'm thirsty. Oh, awake again? And thirsty? How about a nice, juicy, Martian apple? All right, forget it. I'll die of thirst first. And I have a hard time explaining how a prisoner came to die of thirst while in your charge.  It isn't done in the world, police. Oh, no, when you're weak from thirst, I'll just pour a little dream apple juice between your lips and you'll swallow automatically. It's a very easy technique. I see. You're about eight times as rotten as I ever imagined. Karina doesn't think so. We're going to be married after your trial. Thanks, rat. If I could reach you... Now, easy, old boy, easy. You'll sprain an ankle, and that chain won't break. And suppose you could reach me, I can handle you with one hand and you know it, maybe. But if I could reach that control board, what would you do? Well, that depends on where we are. I don't mind telling you. I'm going to make a brief landing. A landing? A Calypso?  Calypso is one fast swamp. And the swamp is full of surgeon birds. I know. Charming fellows, the surgeon birds. Five feet tall, shaped roughly like human beings, covered with feathers, and each one with eyes all around its head. Each one having four arms that end in ten flexible tentacles. Rather startling to look at, but such interesting tricks they have. Tricks. Their favorite hobby is to cut up face-wrecked human beings and fill them back together again. A new way. Did you read about the poor devil? They gave an extra pair of arms, too, salvaged from a ship made or was killed when their scout rocket crashed on Calypso? Of course. And I actually know a space police officer who fell into their hands. Just for fun, they mixed up his taste and hearing nerves. Now, when he eats Stirline steak, he hears music. And when he hears a bird chirping, he takes chocolate ice cream. He's genius, what? I know that Earth has warned them any more tricks on space-wrecked rocket men and will bomb their villages. But to actually risk landing among... Relax, you worry too much. They promise to be good, and some of them have learned to talk English after a fashion. And they have a new hobby, raising green apples. So that's where the supply is coming. Yes, a nice, secret little plantation. We're going to load aboard a supply. Only, of course, the authorities back home are going to think you were smuggling them in. Oh, no, Randy. Oh, yes, Johnny Boy. You're sewed up three ways from Sunday. You really have me, though. I think so. I kept hoping, but... I guess I'm licked. Okay. What you used to struggle. Give me a dream apple. I'll be happy for now anyway. Now you're being sensible. Here's a nice, juicy one. Here, catch. Okay. Ah, just right. Hey, if you throw that thing at me... I'm not going to throw it at you. I'm throwing it at that little button on the board marked full acceleration, like this. Wait a minute. I can't move. Right. So, I know it. They'll both be killed. Anyway, I'll take you with me. To the world. And three to... one last good turn. Full acceleration. But what about the other man? Randy is dead. But I'm still framed into a murder charge. Excuse me. We are going to hide. We do not want to be punished.  I'll leave until your friends come. But listen, I know... I know you can't... Look, you don't make sense that you... Goodbye.  Superior officer? Of course. What's wrong, Randy? Don't you remember that you're Lieutenant Randy Morgan? Me? Randy Morgan?  I'm John Mallowan. You're the one who's crazy. Mallowan is dead. John Mallowan dead, but... The grave outside when we landed an hour ago. Been searching for your rocket for days, you know. You found John Mallowan's grave? You're sure? Of course. We checked. He all right. Badly smashed up from the crash, though. But it was me who was badly... These aren't mine. You're still groggy, Randy. I understand it must have been rough. My things. I better call the doctor and I haven't give you a sedative, Randy. You're in bad shape. It may be a form of amnesia. No, no, no. No, wait. It was those surgeon birds. Do you realize what they've done? From the evidence operated on you won't save your life. This time I guess we won't punish them. No, but... But more than that, that... Uh... Captain Phillips. Uh... But I have just a couple of minutes to, uh, pull myself together. Then I'll, uh... I'll be all right. I promise. Of course, Randy. I'll bring you a drink. You can use one. Yes. I'll be back in a minute. These hands, Randy's hands. My face. My body. Randy's face. His body. I'm Randy now. Me, John Mallowan. Bird. They found my body smashed. His brain damaged. They couldn't resist an experiment. They put my brain in Randy's body. I'm Lieutenant Randy Morgan and John Mallowan. Framed into an airtight murder charge is dead. The case is closed. Presigned from the world, Greece. Feeling better, Randy? I'm whisking. It'll do you good. Thanks. Well, I feel better now. Good. For a minute, I was worried about you. Oh, by the way, there's a call from Earth waiting for you. I brought the field transmitter. You can talk to her here in private if you want. Sir? I think you know who I mean. I'll be outside. Bring the transmitter along. Certainly, sir. Hello? Trina. Yes, yes, I'm fine. Yes, Trina. The guilty man has paid for his crime. As fast as the rocket can make it. I have a lot to tell you. Some things to explain to you. I'll be right back. Yes, Trina. You'll find that I'm a little changed. But I think you'll like to change. The operation was a great success. Dear me, that's the most original method of escaping from a false murder charge I ever heard of. To exchange bodies with the man who framed you. But don't try to make use of it. You'll have to wait a thousand years before it'll be practical. Of course, sir, if you have the time and don't mind waiting, then... Oh, you have to get off here. I'm sorry. I'm sure we'll meet again. I take this same train every week at the same time. You have just heard the Mysterious Traveler. Now you can enjoy other tense and exciting stories of the Mysterious Traveler in the current issue of the Mysterious Traveler magazine, all available. In our cast, with Chuck Webster, Gene Carson, Sidney Paul, and Robert Dunnley, with Maurice Tarplin starred in the title role. Music is under the direction of Emerson Buckley, composed by Richard E. Page. All characters in our story were fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons in the name or otherwise is purely coincidental. Bill Tonkin speaking, this program came to you from New York. And was transcribed.


a visit from the director of CMMI recently. So I think that's very promising. I might go on auto limb to say that's very promising for our application. It also suggests that we might have some ability to be more innovative and step ahead of ahead in areas around the state of Vermont. Where a head really isn't gonna get Vermont ahead. Like if I understand right, correct me if I'm wrong. Components of a head in substance use and mental health are actually funded by the areas where providers are making cost savings and are those reinvested into mental health and substance use. So if they're not making great savings, we're not gonna have great investments in mental health. And substance use, is that how it works? Well, there are enhanced primary care payments and we've been really pushing the fact that we need to continue Medicare's participation in Blueprint and SASH. So thinking about ways in which we continue to work on through Blueprint expansion efforts and using those, working with the advanced primary care requirements under the model. I think that has some additional promise to meet what you're discussing. But also, yes, there aren't a lot of new dollars that they're saying here's a new funding stream for these other areas across the care continuum, except real flexibilities and those new flexibilities under hospital global budgets, as well as the advanced primary care payments, which are an additional added PMPM payment for the related to this program. I understand that better. Thank you. Well, well, this is our first shot, right? Yeah. Senator Harry, go ahead. Thank you, guys. I think it would be really helpful to have a deep dive into what the AHEAD model is, because I didn't actually understand your answer to Representative Rebecca and so that's concerning. And so, will this model include an ACO? And if so, how will the ACO work in this model? So the model does not require an ACO. It's not an ACO model. I think thinking about functions that an organization like an ACO can perform is something that we're continuing to be able to think through in that infrastructure that is currently available and supportive of our health care reform efforts and how to make sure that some of those activities are continued. So that is an area that is a difference from our current model to the one today. And CMMI has indicated an ACO wouldn't coexist in the same way that our system does today. But that doesn't mean that the functions performed, some of the functions performed could not continue. So there's a possibility that we could take the couple good things that our ACO and get rid of most of that ACO. It's balanced and more than good in my opinion. But is that a possibility? Yeah, I think opportunities for sort of that centralized infrastructure and support are ways that CMMI would allow those to continue under the model, but they would not allow a risk-bearing ACO to be a component. Okay, that's good. So we have her back shake one more deep dive. I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said. Could we do a more deep dive to be a head model? Senator, yes. One of the issues that we covered in our health reform oversight committee was a deep dive. And then I did provide my committee with the slides that you brought into that meeting. And this was an opportunity really to look at S167. And then we will come back to whatever we need to do going forward to offer some suggestions on the AHEAD model. And that will happen. We'll have to do that sometime before March, but this is not, I did ask for a little bit of information on ahead today. I think we both did. So, but we'll have to get that possibly another day. But this is a very good conversation because I think it helps get some of the fundamental questions out that folks have. We did ask a number of questions during the ATROC meeting. One of the- That was November 30th. Yeah. And we will send out the link in the document. You can look at that. That'll get a start when we would like to do that. Was it November 30th or November 5th? No, it was the end of the month. Oh, we had to end it at the end of the month. 29th or 30th, one of those dates. I think what I would love, and we don't have to do it here, but a more clear understanding of from you all is what you do need from the legislature before March. My understanding is any updates, changes, things we want to maybe get in to the model is now only happening once we're accepted. So I'd love some clarity on that if you can answer it now. And just in general, what do you need from us from March? How can we make sure that the intent of the legislature is included in the application? And the application, so right now as I had mentioned before, we're really working through what are ways to be responsive to the questions played out and which will be scored and be the way that the federal government decides which states to select. So we are working through those. I can't off the top of my head think of the specific areas where we might ask for persistence, but definitely once we, if we are selected and need to move through that the negotiation process of what would the Vermont state agreement look like, I think that is an even more opportune time to be thinking about and having those conversations with CMMI. Because right now, as I mentioned before, we were meeting with that very regularly to inform the model, but as soon as this notice of funding opportunity was released, they're no longer allowed to talk with us. So we can't really influence the elements of it now until we're selected and can start those conversations again on the agreement during the pre-implementation period. So I think for those, I've heard some concerns from people that the legislature is not involved in this process. And so help me, correct me if what I'm about to say is incorrect, but when we passed Act 167, we put our intent and legislation of what we wanted from the next all pair model that intent helped direct the conversations you all were having with Green Bank care board collaboration with the federal government. We've now gotten to a point where they have outlined the ideas and some of the basis behind the model. So now we apply for it and then our intent will continue to evolve and we will continue to provide our intent through the negotiation process. So although we don't specifically talk to the federal government, we provide you our intent during these phases for healthcare reform in Vermont and that collaboration then happens at the agency level with the federal government. That's exactly right. It's particularly where we have this slide where we went over the elements within Act 167 which were important to examine during a subsequent agreement. So that directed sort of our attention to those areas and our discussions with CMMI and those further opportunities are forthcoming to in which we would be engaging with you. Thank you. All right, so legislature passes its statutes and you do all the good work and then negotiate with the federal government to make it happen other places but to take us a next step. I'll say forward. Yeah, so this is great. Other questions that folks have, understanding that this is just like the thousand foot, 10,000 foot level on the AHEAD model and certainly both committees will have a chance to look at it further, go ahead. Art? Yes, I'm looking at your first slide, you're the opposite of healthcare reform. How do you interface with the Green Mountain Care Board trying to make it reform? What, how does that work? Yes, so we are within the agency of human services and I think there was a really great slide that the Green Mountain Care Board shared during their presentation with the various elements of Act 167 and where GMCB took the lead and AHS collaborated versus where AHS took the lead and GMCB collaborated but we work very closely in our discussions with CMMI and within some of those technical assistance groups we had mentioned particularly on the hospital, global budgets, Chair, sorry, Green Mountain Care Board Member Lunge and to the Director of Healthcare Reform co-chaired to those meetings and staff really far from participating being very helpful on all of the other work, on many of the other work groups. So been trying to at least make sure we're all hearing, learning and explaining to the federal government the position of the state of Vermont. Thank you. Other questions? Okay, so in terms of the work that you're doing on 167 and next steps, you've done a huge amount already and AHS is working synchronously with Green Mountain Care Board. Can you talk a little bit about sort of the intersection not just with the AHEAD model but also with the 167 work that's going on? Through the Secretary's office probably more but you're also a part of that. Is there a specific section you're referencing? No, just generally how you guys are working together with Green Mountain Care Board, yeah. I mean, I don't know how to fully answer that other than we're very collaborative and in approaching all of the work we're doing. So particularly one of the highest areas of activity at least for me, I don't want to speak for everyone across the agency or our office but is working on the development of the proposal to just do March 18th. So we're all have varied responsibilities in developing sort of the content related to that. So there's just sort of seamless communication and in that work and then where there's a number of other activities happening, I think we're all trying to be as helpful as well as leaning all of the information that's being learned from other activities. So for example, the Great Stakeholder work that's happening, that's going to be an important part of informing things like our health equity strategies. So I don't know if that fully answers your question. That's good. Just a flavor for what things are happening. Were you involved when the CMLI folks came and visited along with the Green Mountain Care Board? And so the one story that I think is very informative about our rural environment is the CMLI folks came in and their experiences have all been in larger urban areas. And I think one of the really smart things that happened was that, I don't know whether it was you or the Green Mountain Care Board put everyone in a car and took them to the Northeast Kingdom to understand the rural nature of Vermont and our healthcare system as being geographically remote. So, yeah. We did have great discussions with for two days, one with providers who are kind enough to sort of come to a single location despite us trying to really get that statewide feel. And then yes, we did quite a caravan to the Northeast Kingdom. And I think that was very helpful to see what this looked like at a single hospital that looked like hospitals that served for mongers across the state. And so I think that was very impactful for them and the team they brought. And they were very excited about stopping for creamies too. All right. All right. That's good. Well done. Any other questions? Any, this is very quick. Do you have a model has a website? And I'm wondering if you think that's a good resource or is it not necessarily a good resource for us? The federal website, I think does have a lot of good material. It's great to hear their perspective too on what they're seeking to achieve. We are monitoring it regularly because they're doing these frequently asked questions documents as well as they're having opportunities for office hours for states to call in. So, I visit that website quite a bit. And some of the infographics are good pictorially. They don't give you that full detail, but between the notice of funding opportunity and some of the materials on there, there's I think it's a helpful way to really ground yourself in the model. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. I understand the 167 was one question. I had a slightly different one. We appreciate your expertise and coming in and sharing with us very much. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Oh, thank you. Unless there are other questions for Wendy or is there any, just before we end, I mean, look around the room. Is there anyone looking at Green Mountain Care Board or Blueprint or others, Diva hospitals, any comment you'd like to make or questions or? Oh, I'll just ask something, Senator.  Thank you. I took the comfy chair back. I'm going to put it in my terms if I can. Introduce yourself for the record. I'm John Saroy and I'm the Executive Director for Blueprint for Health. I've spoken to many of you before. It's not all of you. I'm going to put it in my simple terms because I don't dive deeply into the website like my colleagues in the corridor do of healthcare reform. I looked at it. There's like, I think one image and a slide that I saw and I said they're copying the Blueprint expansion that the legislature just funded. And the reason why I said that was because they're emphasizing enhanced primary care, which we've talked about, that it's more than diagnose, treat, and out the door. It's screening for other things that might be affecting a person's health that you don't necessarily get about in an interview. And it's embedding a person to help address those needs. For example, a community health worker, which you all, the legislature funded for Blueprint and were already implementing. So that was my just very quick reaction. They're very, in my view, the hospital budget. Global budget. They're taking that from Maryland and they're taking a lot of the screening for mental health substance use disorder from Rhode Island and from Vermont. Now, I don't know what's going on in every single state, but if I could ask them and listen in on those rooms where they all come up with, that's what it looks like on the surface. But I'm not giving you a heavily technical explanation We like heavily on technical. It was just, it was just, it was my immediate reaction of like, are they listening to our conversations? Are they visiting our website? Did they watch testimony? It was a bit odd, but flattering, I guess. And it looks like that because, you know, we were instructed under Act 167 and we did have that opportunity to really go forward and push the really successful initiatives in the state. So they were listening. And I'm not prepared to give you all the dollar figures, but Medicare underpays in the community health teams. They underpay into a patient-centered medical home. They just do. They literally underpay. And we have evidence that people with Medicare take advantage, as they should, of community health team resources that we're not getting our fair dollar amount from the federal government. I mean, it's just, it just looks. That's actually a big question. You know, one of the concerns that I've had from the beginning is we're doing all of this and we're, it's not an add-on, but it's, it is an expansion in care and continuity of care. And the federal government has always underpaid the state of Vermont and they do underpay Medicare. So what resources will we get? What incentive payments will we get? I know, I know it's small, but we will get some incentive payments if we are selected for a head. Was it $2 million? So there's sort of two funding streams. Make me think about, there's the $17 PMPN per member per month payment for advanced primary care. So that goes to the eligible population. And then there's also, which you were referring to the cooperative agreement funding. So state who are selected can get $12 million to be spent. That's better than two. It's unmodeled implementation over the first six performance period. So about up to $2 million per year, although one of those is a six month chunk. So the first 18 months is $4 million. Thank you. This was helpful. Yes, thank you very much. It depends on where you are, relative to the elephant in the room, what you see and you were seeing primary care for us and that helps us. And blueprint extends, as you all know, into addiction and to women's health for sure. So it's, we are definitely more than that, but when I looked at their model, I just looked like they were listening and on our conversations. Yeah, exactly. Are we proud? No, but the blueprint, yeah, and we all know the blueprint has received significant attention across the country, ever since we started it. And it's just so important to us all. Thank you. Thanks for your work. Thank you for your work. Any other questions? Any other comments? What happens when you ask for comments? We're good. So we'll call it a day. Are we going to have one? I'm good. Thank you all. We can go up there.


And here we go, on the metal voice today. Some good friends of mine thought we'd have a little chat about R.N. Maiden, been in the news lately, new album coming out. Sinjutsu, how do you pronounce that, Martin Sinjutsu? I don't know. I don't know anything about why it's called that or anything yet. So. Amen from Eon Music Editor. Hello. And of course, the one and only Martin Popoff. Martin, do you have your book there? Your R.N. Maiden album, my album? Yeah, I do have that one, the one that you're, by the way, are you recording? So I'm not seeing the little recording sign up. You know, I'm gonna do a recording right here too. Might as well record this. Recording in progress. Oh, there we go. Recording in progress. I don't think you were on. What? No, no, we're on live. We're live on YouTube and I'm recording it as a backup. All right, very cool. Yeah. Recording in progress. So I do have this. I wanted to clear up the supply of these books. So Iron Maiden album by album, which Jimmy is a star of. I do have a supply of this. Now, this, just so people know, is long out of print, but I have one copy in my rare books box so I can sell. It's not cheap, but I've got one copy there. And also along that line, there's the trilogy of the Where Eagles Dare. This is the story of Maiden just in normal form. Holy smoke, Iron Maiden, the 80s. Empire of the Cloud. So this one is now out of print. I don't think I'm bringing it back. I got two in my rare books box. So I could sell two complete trilogies of the trilogy, but these two are both available. And that's all martinpopoff.com. There you go. I love it, Martin. And one more time, show your album by album, Iron Maiden. Right. Just so we can see one more time. And just all the guests. Who are the guests? This is one of the only ones that's actually in print. This and the Queen. The other ones are all out of print because this book publisher closed down their music book division. So there you go. Yeah. You can buy that on all online purchasing, like Amazon and wherever else you can shop. All right. Today's topic, a very bizarre topic, but a very interesting topic at the same time. Me and Martin are on the phone this morning saying, we need something really interesting to talk about Iron Maiden since there's this new album coming out September the third. Sijitsu. Sijitsu? I don't know. Sijitsu. So we thought, why not rank the advanced singles that Iron Maiden have come out in the past, get this, 20 years or 21 years from 2000 to 2021. What did you think about this topic, Ayman, right off the bat?  You know, I don't know if you know, I do the guitar lessons, I do Adrian Smith's guitar lessons online and I studied these songs a lot. I love this kind of stuff. Like we're all nerds, aren't we? Me, you, Martin, we're total music nerds. This is cool topic, great topic. I'm a metal nerd, definitely. I've always been a metal nerd. And Martin, you know, we know Martin. Martin's like the encyclopedia of metal nerds. Okay, here we go. We're going to rank this what we're going to do. We're going to rank from six to one because there are only six albums in this era. And on a side topic, after each one of us ranks from six to one, we're going to say, well, should have there been another single instead or we were happy with this single? Did that single, that advanced single, represent sort of what was coming with that new album or not? We'll just discuss that. All right, so we're going to start off with Martin. Martin rank it, advanced singles. And just to clarify, advanced singles means before the album was released, that was the single. Go ahead, Martin. Okay, so my number six position, last position I'm going to go with Wildest Dreams. I really do not like this song at all. I basically think it doesn't even have a guitar riff. So it came out September 1st, 2003. The album came out November 24th. This is Jimmy's find our research here and I'm taking credit for it by reading off these dates. You can use my stuff, you can use my stuff. But yeah, I really don't like this song. It's like Son of Wicker Man and not very good version of Wicker Man in a way, I think. But better production than Wicker Man, I thought, but similar tempo, kind of like I say, kind of a dull riff. My number five, I went with the Wicker Man. I was not very crazy about that song when it came out with its Doobie Brothers, China Grove riff. And again, I think it's barely even a riff at all. I didn't like the production of this record all that much. Pretty cool pre-chorus and then it goes into that halftime thing, which is really cool. It's got a good chorus there other than the dancing part by Yannick. Not crazy about that to it when you see it live sort of thing. But no, I'm not crazy about that song. Next I'll go with my number four is The Writing on the Wall. So this one actually sounds more like a deep album track that you'll get on any of these Maiden albums. It sounds like an actual Maiden song. It's long, it's Celtic. I described it as a little Southern-y, I thought. But, and I like the intro. The intro is a little bit of a fresh thing with that sort of, you know, desperado cowboy music acoustic thing going on. So that's my, in the middle of the pack. Next I'll go with number three, Reincarnation of Benjamin Brigg. I really like the riff on this. I think this is a super heavy song. I like that it had the kind of cool mysterious story about it. It's not very Maiden-like. So I thought it was quite uncharacteristic of even the album and anything Maiden would do. It's just this really cool, interesting, odd, really bottom Andy riff. Great slow speed groove from Nico on it. You know, a complicated, slow galloping part later on, I thought. So that was Matter of Life and Death. El Dorado, I'm picking my second favorite. Killer Rocker, just a good, heavy song, just a good kind of universal world lyric on it. Weird chords for the chorus. The solo part I don't like very much on it, but the other kind of late music edition parts which you expect from Maiden I thought were really cool, but a great heavy tune. And for number one, I went with Speed of Light from Book of Souls. That was advanced August 14th, 2015. The album came out just like two, two and a half weeks later kind of thing. You know, that cowbell intro, really rock and rollsy, but gnarly. It sounds literally like a song that could have been lifted right off a peace of mind. I just think it's just a great heavy, heavy rocker from Maiden, but also with that little rock and rollsy and this thing and great, great groove on it and good bottom end. So that's my sixth. So Martin, I'm just gonna, I just wanna write him down so I can understand what you had. You had Speed of Light is number one. El Dorado is number two. Number three was? Benjamin Brigg. Ben, okay. Number four was? Writing on the wall. Writing and then Wicker Man and Wildest Dreams. Yeah. All right, Amon. Okay. Well, some very interesting points there made by Martin. I'm gonna go the same number six, Wildest Dreams at the bottom. I know there's a lot of debate around that song. A lot of kind of hate for it. I think they were just trying to go for something commercial. That's their writing of single. But it's definitely my number six out of all of these. A very interesting thing to note actually about all these singles is I'm pretty sure they're all have an Adrian Smith and Bruce Dickinson co-write in there with a few anomalies. The Wicker Man was Smith Dickinson, Harris. Yeah. And I think Dave Murray has a co-write on Benjamin Brigg. But immediately before the writing on the wall came out, I knew, I was like, they always go with a Smith Dickinson or a Smith Dickinson, Harris. And sure enough, that's what happened. But that's an interesting thing to write when they're, I think we all know that when they go for kind of commercial, Adrian Smith's gotta be in there. Anyway, I digress. My number five is Benjamin Brigg, I think because it's kind of one of these slower tracks as well. It's not a punchy album, you know, album launcher. So that's why it's my number five. Number four, for the same reason, writing on the wall, the new track. I think to be honest with you, none of us really have had a lot of time to let it sink in. And if we do this ranking in two years time, it might change. But my first thought when I heard it was that it's an unusual track to go with your right, Martin. It is a mid-paced album track.  And I think it's really too early to go just here as a song. I think maybe later on I might rank lower. Number three, it went for El Torado. I thought it was a brilliant, brilliant song to launch Final Frontier with. I was really excited by it. Again, I know that's one of the albums that there's a little bit of, it's probably everyone's least favorite reunion album. And I disagree with that. Number two, I went for Speed of Light, which was Martin's number one. Fantastic song. That's an Adrian Smith classic that is beautifully written, catchy. It's got everything you want for a lead single. Amazing. And number one had to be the Wickerman. For me, that is as strong as anything that released in the 80s. That was the one that relaunched the band in 2000 after the blaze years and everything that happened. And they needed to relaunch with something massive. And by God, they did it. And it's still, to this day, I think it's the best single that released easily since those days and even could compete with some of their bigger songs. So that's my top six. All right, I'm gonna summarize for everybody. Wickerman was number one. Number two was Speed of Light. Number three was El Dorado. Number four was Writing on the Wall. Benjamin was number five and six was Wildest Dreams. So there seems to be a little commonality here on the last pick. Everybody seems to be thinking Wildest Dreams or saying that Wildest Dreams is their worst pick. I'm gonna give you my six. You guys pretty much covered everything in these songs. There's not much more to say. But number six for me would be Wildest Dreams, like you guys. It was like, to me, was just a boring, terrible song with a boring, terrible video. It just, I don't know. It just didn't showcase me at their best. Number five was Speed of Light. I find it's a flat song. The production is horrific. I don't know. I just think they could have come up with something a lot better as an advanced single. I think the rest of the album is great, but I just think that song is just, it missed the mark. At the time, I was very excited because, wow, we got some new made in music. Oh, wow, this is the best thing ever. But then over time, you realize, this isn't so great. Number four, The Reincarnation of Benjamin Brieg. I'm a very, huge on Prague. But I think it was so complicated this song that it kind of lost any sort of inspiration. There's inspiring, progressive songs, and this is more of a, I would have chosen another track, but we'll talk about that later. Number three, I love the writing on the wall. Sure, it's Bon Jovi with a McCowboy, Wanted Dead or Alive. But I think they're kind of like going into the blues, and you can see that Smith influence of his hard rockin' blues, especially from his last collaboration, that soul album that with, what's his name, Eamonn. Yes, yes. And then number two, El Dorado. I think it's a phenomenal song. Would have I chosen that song as the lead single? Probably not. But I think, I love the key change from the chorus to the verse, which, and I think it's a key change there, right, Eamonn? No, I'm singing it to myself. Yeah, I think it's a key change.  I love the galloping, you know, guitar work, traditional maiden, but it was a little different. It was different from what they've done in the past, and of course, the Wicker Man. Bam, bam, bam. To me that, I can't believe Martin ranked it so low. To me that was, we're back guys, this is the Wicker Man. It's kind of like Rothschild. It's sort of like intense, fast pace, you know, in-your-face type of song. I can't even believe Martin put it at number five. Like, to me that's the biggest thing. Yeah, exactly. That's like, Martin, like, what are you thinking? Please elaborate on how the Wicker Man could be ranked so low. Well, I feel that the production is kind of like, it feels like they're in separate rooms. That kind of bothers me about it. But you're okay with the speed of life production. That's what you're saying. Yes, I am. The speed of life production is like worse. I have no problems with the production. My least favorite productions are this new song and going back to Brave New World and all of them. I think they kind of, you know, I think they sorted out the bottom end and the base a little bit. I mean, still, Kevin Shirley does have a very strange sound, but, you know, as I was saying on Facebook, it's almost like if we got a perfect sort of desktop metal, efficient Saxon, except Judas Priest production and stuck that on Maiden, we'd even complain even more, right?  If we didn't have this in Maiden and we had something else that was more, you know, quote unquote, correct, we'd just complain about that. So I don't know, I'm all over the place on what to do about them with production. Amen, okay. So we've all picked Wilder's Dreams as the worst of the six. Okay, so since we've all agreed upon that, what would you have put, what advanced single would have you put instead? Think of the album now. Do you want the tracklist thing on the album? You're kind of looking at it here. We've got Rainmaker, No More Lies, just reading it from the back of us. No More Lies here, Dance of Death, Gates of Tomorrow, New Frontier, Passion Deal. I think we'd, I don't know, but I think we'd agree that probably Passion Deal is the best track on that album, but it's not a lead single, is it, you know? No more than say Rain of the Ancient Mariner isn't a lead single, you know, would never have been a lead single but it's still the best track.  There's a lot of filler on it. I don't think Rainmaker was a brilliant singer single. I think No More Lies was a, let's just say that's not one of the best songs. So I think they probably went with the right song, given the choice of tracks on the album. So you're saying that is the best of the worst? In terms of single material. Yeah, like Passion Deals clearly the best song, but it's for the time, they obviously wanted to go with song punchy song that's a single. They played that song ahead of the album release. So they did a tour and they were like, we're going to play a new song, we're going to do a new single. So they weren't going to bring out the big epic Passion Deals on the, that was the European tour ahead of that album release. I think at the time it was the right choice, yeah. Martin, what do you think? What do you think, what song would have you released? I agree with Amon. Passion Deals is the best. And how about a Passion Deals single at it? Like these guys should do single edits, right? That would be really cool. Or a Montseguirre single edit, even though it's not even that long, it's 550, right? So I'd go with either of those two. Again, as Bruce and Steve have said, with Maiden it really doesn't matter what the single is. Other than with Maiden there's a unique thing that it gets this conversation going on an intense level for a couple of weeks, right? And then that really can cause a lot of bad blood or good blood depending on how that single is received. So I think with Maiden it's almost like you wanna put forward a song that the Maiden fans are gonna universally love. So Passion Deals, sure. And just what I've noticed actually, I was mapping this out this morning. I went from the whole catalog and I noticed that this is the tradition that they've done. This is typically what they've done. They've done one advanced single and then after the album's released they would release a second single. That seems to be how they always do things. So I'm gonna tell everybody out there that we're not gonna hear another single from them until after the album is released. Traditionally, that's what they're doing and maybe they'll change it up, I don't know. All right, El Dorado, we all seem to love it but was it the right single, Martin? Was it the right single to release? What about the final frontier? Why wasn't that one sort of edited and released? Yeah, that's a great song. That would have been good as well but I mean, I just love El Dorado so much. So based on what I just said about having a bunch of good will thrown towards the band, I think you can't do much better than El Dorado. El Dorado's got this punchy weird title that gets people talking as well. So yeah, I really think and I've never thought about this before but I'd say just off the top of my head that seems like the real good reason to sort out a single that is a really, really good track just so the fans aren't revolting on you as the album is coming out which they're kinda doing now with this new one, right? All right, Amen. Would you have removed the satellite? What is it, satellite? What do they call it again? Yeah, 15, 15. Satellite 15, would you, like I mean it's connected to the song. They didn't create like two tracks there. If they would have removed satellite 15, put the Final Frontier, would have that been a better, a lot of people hate the Final Frontier. There's not a lot of fans that like this album. I love it personally. Yeah. Do you think that if Final Frontier was the lead single things that would have sort of changed people's opinion about the album? Okay, I'm gonna tell you, the Final Frontier is my second favorite reunion album after Brave New World or the second era. The minute I put that on the Final Frontier and I heard Satellite 15, I thought it was amazing. I could hear the echoey guitars. I was like, big production's back, brilliant. And then the snare comes in and it's like, oh no, we're back to the dry production again. I thought we were back to seven, here we have the successor to seventh song. Oh my God, this is gonna be awesome. And then it was dry as hell. I think if you had that production going into the song, the Final Frontier and edited that down, that would have been stunning. That's what I would have said. That would have been like a huge impact, like kind of like the Wicker Man in the sense, right? Yeah, but in saying that, I thought El Dorado was great.  I can't remember what it was, but it was topical at the time. And yeah, it was a great single. I have no complaints about it. Absolutely not, great thing. All right, Martin, Speed of Light, your number one pick. Do you think perhaps Tears of a Clown would have been, because you got the Robin Williams connection, it would have sort of made the album more accessible to the general population. You tied in with Robin Williams. I personally think Tears of a Clown should have been their first single and breaking out into the masses because there's the Robin Williams connection of his death. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I'd agree with that. It would definitely get people talking. It's definitely a different sort of maiden thing. But again, I thought the single choice is far and away the best song in the album. It's got a lot of long songs on it that are more deep album tracks. And just to clarify, yeah, you're right, Aiman, that whole, so it's 2010 and 2008, going into 2009 is the big stock market crash, almost the complete banking crash, the mortgage crisis, all of that at the same time. So there was like a 20% drop in the stock market. And then, you know, the recovery was fairly quick, but for a while there, it looked like capitalism wasn't going to be, wasn't going to survive. It, you know, it was looking like it was going to be a house of cards, right? As where, you know, one thing dominos something else, dominos something else. So that was cool about El Dorado that it kind of addressed that. So, yeah. All right, guys. So I'm just going to look at the comments here and everybody just type your number one pick. I'm not going to ask for everybody six picks, but type in your number one pick that you love the most from those six albums. All right, this is the last question for Aiman and Martin. Aiman, the writing on the wall, just give me your, you know, your 30 seconds of your opinion on this new song. Okay, it's in the middle of the pack in terms of, you know, what you thought about it. Come give me your opinions. Do you think, do you like the Bon Jovi angle or not? Well, I actually thought it was like Iron Maiden or Cover and Journey, he's the wheel in the sky, you know? It's because I can see him kind of riff in that kind of D. I think it's brilliant. Adrian Smith is Irish, his parents are Irish. He's got a Celtic vibe going on there. Coupled with that video, it's epic. It's absolutely epic. When I watched that for the first time last week when everyone else did, I was floored. I thought it was superb and I can't wait to hear the rest of the album. Okay, and Martin, what did you think?  That's the way I kind of describe it. It just seems like we're the rolling stones of heavy metal sort of thing, right? I liked all the parts. I'm glad there's not a fast free bird jam in it. Acoustic intro, better than a bass intro. Nice couple of Adrian solos. Is that right, Aiman? Would you say that? Yeah, they're both Adrian solos. Are they both Adrian solos? I thought the first one was Dave Murray. The second one, definitely Adrian. The second one's definitely Adrian. The first one, I'm pretty sure is Adrian solos. Yeah. Bruce is in a weird range with that really mouth open sort of thing he has to do. It's almost like, is he pushed into a range? He doesn't want to be in these days. It's kind of odd, but he does a good job. Bruce is, I think, one of our shining examples of an elderly lead vocalist who has not lost his chops like a lot of these other guys, of course. Lots of room for Nico to be. Nico, yeah, I gave it like a 7.5. I'm probably still in that range on it. What would you rank it out of 10, Aiman? Oh, that's a good question. I think 7.5 is about fair. You know, I agree with Barton what he's saying that, you know, from production point of view, I think what's interesting, I don't know if you noticed, but Steve Harris is credited as co-producer for the first time since virtual 11, I believe. Now, I think we all know that Steve has been co-producing all along, but this is the first time that he's been credited as a co-producer. I believe, I could be wrong about that, but certainly Book of Souls was just Kevin Shirley. As far as I recall the rest of them are just Kevin Shirley. So yeah, I'd rank it as 7.5. I think, yeah, we could talk about the production all day. I think I'd rank it a little bit hard because every time I hear it, I seem to enjoy it a lot more. And I kind of like how they're breaking out of the traditional maiden sound. And of course there's the, you know, the guitar there. It's typical, you know, the harmonics or the harmonies. I got this message from Aldanova, right when we did the review. Like we did a review of it a few days ago of the new single and he goes, Jimmy, the song sounds like, the chorus sounds like Saints and Sinners that he did with Rick Hughes from Sword. That album, there's a song called Frankensteins. They're the chorus is very similar to the Iron Maiden chorus. So if you guys want to check that out, check it out. I put it on, it sounds similar. The same groove too. I wouldn't say the whole song is identical, but the chorus is very familiar, you know, which is a little note there. Neat, yeah. I will say this about Iron Maiden singles. They do think about it and they have got it right sometimes and they've got it wrong. I don't know if you know this, but ahead of the X factor, Steve Harris wanted to go with the sign of the cross. Okay, we're not there yet. We're not there yet. Oh, actually. We're not there yet. We're not there yet. We're 20 years. 2000 to 2021. We'll talk about that another time. Yeah, Aiman doesn't know this, but Jimmy did the homework all the way back. So maybe we'll do this again, right? Is that the plan? Well, let's see if people care about this show and then we'll continue if they do, right? The Book of Souls, Empire of the Clouds was the second single released after the album. What did you guys think of that on a last note? I hated it. Oh my God. I think it's... Oh, I'm trying to be diplomatic here. I think it was way overhyped. It's way over long. Yeah, that is not... I'm not on board with that thing. I'm not on board the R101 at all. To me, it went down like the airship. I thought it was a... It's a brilliant song, but Martin, go ahead. Yeah, I like it quite a bit too. I thought it was at least different for them. It's not the same, you know, dense, heavy long song. Yeah, I thought I was fine with it.  It really is Book of Souls and Final Frontier. I mean, and I have quite a soft spot for a matter of life and death, but Brave New World has really worn off on me, you know? I mean, I remember the hype around that when it came out. And then I remember a lot of pretty deep fans after a few months were kind of down on it. And I'm still down on it. I'm with you, Martin, you know, the final, you know, and I really appreciated the album a lot more when we were doing that book that we just showed before. You gave me the Final Frontier, I guess, because nobody else wanted to cover it. But I just, I sunk my teeth into it and I listened to it carefully. I listened to the words, I listened, I read the lyrics and I listened to the music. And the more I sort of dived into that album, the more I appreciated it. And today when I listened to it, I just hear so many things and there's some great lyrics and there's some great musicianship and there's a little bit of rush in there. And, you know, I don't know, it's a great album and even Brave New World, sorry, The Book of Souls. I really appreciate it years later. All right, Chief Eddie says, the Final Frontier is an amazing album. Jamie saying, I only wish I liked all of the Final Frontier. Team Early saying the Alchemist should have been the Final Frontier single. I don't know. He's also saying Speed of Light, Chief Eddie saying El Dorado, Kenny saying Wickerman. Jeb Barg is saying Wickerman, Radio Version. Jamie saying Wickerman is my number one. Dubro saying the Final Frontier, hello friends who shall remain nameless. Run to the Hill says, be quick or, what? Be quick or be dead is awesome. Okay, we're not there yet. And, dude, dude, and he's referring to you Martin, Brave New World is an awesome record. Dude, dude. To me, it doesn't sound a heck of a lot different than the X Factor and the Virtual 11 really. Other than the production and obviously Bruce is back. The production is better. Sleep Petraemi says, agree, Brave New World is amazing Martin. What's up with that? The Final Frontier is the worst of the latter date made in albums. My opinion, of course, that's Ron. But dudes, dudes, I think we're gonna let everybody go now. Thank you very much for the chit chat. Good to be all, thanks for having me, Jimmy. Very cool, yeah, this was fun. Nice meeting you, Amon. Maybe we'll see you back for round two. Amen. We're supposed to be in Montreal and Toronto, right, Amon? You got canceled because of COVID. Yeah, unfortunately, I was meant to be there in May, but I'm off to Steelehouse Festival and Wheels this weekend. I'm gonna see you right here in the darkness and therapy and a lot of good bands. So that'll be, I'm looking forward to that. That'll be up on the website. If anyone wants to check out next week, the week after. Yeah, next week. Martin, last plug on your books. You want to say anything about your books? Not particularly. It's just they're all available at martinpopoff.com. There's PayPal buttons there. I sign them and send them out from the office here, but you got the rundown on the maidens. Like I say, it's the two minutes midnight and the Empire of the Clouds. I've just got a couple in the Rare Books box, but the other three totally available. What were the new books you were telling me about that you just released? That I was working on, yeah. Well, I just turned in. It's not gonna be out for a while, but I just turned in a book of, I had to write four or 500 words on every song by The Damned. So there's gonna be a The Damned book, about 170 Dammed songs. The Ari Heap Visual Biography just came out. I've got those. That's a big expensive book from the UK, Weimar, but I've got a supply of that. And I still have a supply of the Thin Lizzie Visual Biography, the Bluestochal Visual Biography, and the Van Halen one. Right. Imaginose, Imaginose. Aiman, are you, are you familiar with Imaginose? I'm not. By blue eyes you're called? No? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right guys, have yourself a wonderful day. We'll talk soon. All right. Bye-bye.


In this episode, we'll be talking about two kinds of thinking about what's true. We'll talk about what happens when you forget about morals and how to use storytelling to build emotional connections and business benefits. Here's the guest for this episode. Let the show begin. Hi, this is Annette Simmons and this is a service design show. Hi, I'm Mark and welcome to the service design show. This show is all about helping you to do more things that make you proud by designing and delivering services that are good for people and business. My guest in this episode is a writer of four books on storytelling and the first book has been in print since 1997 and has been translated into 15 languages. I've read one of her books which really inspired me as a service designer so I needed to invite her on the show. Her name is Annette Simmons. The main theme of this episode is what is the price we pay as a society when we miss you storytelling just for profit. That's what this episode is all about. If you're new to the service design show, be sure to subscribe as we bring new videos every week. And if you haven't done so already, make sure to also check out our Instagram page where we post behind the scenes what happens here on this show. So that's all for the introduction and now let's quickly jump into the interview with Annette. Welcome to the show Annette. Thanks. I'm really excited to have you on your an atypical guest for the service design show and I really like that. I'm atypical across the board but okay. We'll see if that's true in this episode. For the people who don't know who you are, could you give like a 30 second introduction? Yeah, I wrote a book called The Story Factor and it really hit. That was back in the year 2000. It was only one of the four books I've written but I started working on story from the point of view of how to get people to tell the truth to each other. And then because I had a marketing background I began to see how story works to frame something as either good or bad. And so then I wrote whoever tells the best story wins and now the story factor is coming out in the third edition in October. That's one of the reasons why I invited you. I read The Story Factor in my early days as a service designer and it had great influence on me. So yeah, it inspired me in that sense. And I think more service designers should be aware of storytelling. That's what we'll be talking about today in our ramp up for this talk. We were emailing back and forward and you said I actually never heard of the term service design, although you use the word design thinking. And this is really funny because I always ask my guests what was the first time you came in touch with service design. Well, the answer is pretty short this time. We'll be learning a lot from you and maybe you'll learn something from our community this time. Already have. You sent me three topics that are related to the upcoming edition of The Story Factor. So it must be dear to your heart what we'll be talking about. And we'll be doing interview jazz. Are you ready to start? I am, I am. Let's go. I'll pick the first topic that you send me. And you have the notorious social Q question starters. So the first topic we'll be talking about is two kinds of thinking. Yeah, yeah. And so my approach is how can we keep both of them strong? Let's start with what are the two kinds of thinking? The way I think about it, and of course, this, this is a fundamental that some people may even call it right brain, left brain. Some people, but I call it objective versus subjective. And basically all I'm saying is there's two ways of knowing something is true. The objective way is to measure it and then you understand the metrics and then you can make sure you're accurate and proof is very important.  That's a sensory experience and it's an internal experience and it includes emotions. And so our subjective experience is really where we decide whether we have, we feel like this is good service or not. So subjective things don't operate by the same rules as objective things. If they did, we could analyze, slice and dice and hack it. But you think about, okay, a kitten is cute. So I can bring a kitten into a hotel lobby and all of a sudden I'm making people happy. But if we then go in there and we try to figure out how do kittens make people happy? Perhaps we need to take a kitten, slice it and have an examine both sides. We've just destroyed that, which we seek to understand. And so the subjective aspects of service are the things that are variable in the specific. And you can't program that out. You can't program happy. And so protecting this concept from the rigid sort of, you know, and then the idea of consistency. Consistency is only quality when it's consistently good. Consistency by itself is just the hobgoblin of little minds. So subjective things need their own tools. And storytelling, barn on, is the best tool I've ever run across for understanding the subjective. And, you know, if you think about storytelling, storytelling is an evolutionary aspect that we talk about, okay, and it's as big as religion. It's actually in terms of trying to grasp storytelling, it's actually bigger than religion. I would say religion is a subset of storytelling. So what are the tools we use? Well, we're talking art instead of science.  And one of the things I love about service design thinking is that it balances what should work, which is the objective world, with what does work, which for me is the subjective world. And so, for instance, customer service in a hotel, one of my favorite memories of really brilliant customer service was I was frustrated, I was tired, I was exasperated, and I was in a country where, and I didn't even know what country I was in. And I can remember going up, pulling the card key, it didn't work in the door, and you're like, oh crap, now I have to go back downstairs. Go back downstairs. I show her the key, and I say this key doesn't work. Now her response was, oh, that might be because this key isn't for this hotel. And then we both laughed. But another way to solve that would be someone say, oh, you're right. And not even a mention it was the wrong key, wrong hotel key, right? And deliver it. So being kind, being nice is very situationally specific. And so when we use a story, like the one I just told about the key card, my hope is that our customer service people understand that they can use their sense of humor. It is possible. And so that they have a very autonomous approach to be a nice, if we're going to use that one. So many things that already sort of crossed my mind. And one of the things is the way you're talking about subjective and objective thinking. It reminds me, and I always mess them up or misline them, is abductive thinking and deductive thinking. And deductive thinking, like those are like almost parallel with what you're describing. And the thing... In a way, but chopped up. Keep going, keep going. Okay. Well, the other trigger for me was we as a sort of service design community always struggle to prove, feel the need to prove the value of our work. And we know that it's valuable. And we know that it helps to create a better world. But, you know, we can't quantify it. We just feel that it is so. And the harder we try to quantify it, the less believable it becomes. Absolutely.   And that's really hard if you're in a business setting. Yeah. But just to give an example where we were sort of, again, in the email conversation leading up to this interview, I said we sort of embedded storytelling in every aspect of what we do at our studio and also like in the proposal stage. And I just tell stories from past projects. And like people see that as evidence. They don't need numbers. Absolutely. They don't need hard data. They just hear stories, real life stories, and then that's enough. And that's really hard to explain to other service designers that it works their way, but it works. I would, you know, I would even go so far as to say trust is a subjective experience. And so when we tried to hack trust, and hopefully most of us have moved on, then what we looked at is proof, you know, and that's a linear format. And that works in the objective world. But in the subjective world, experience is what works as well as proof. So experience, my definition of story is if experience is the best teacher's story, a second best because it's a simulated experience. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And when we find those stories that have that strong emotional pull, then we're starting to understand what matters to people. And just because we can't slice it and dice it and put it into a quantity does not mean that it's not the most important thing if we're actually going to give good service. That's a great point, making the distinction between trust and proof. Like, you don't need proof to build trust, right? That's right. Well, by definition, trust is without proof. Is that so? So, yeah, well, think about it. And faith, trust means that you are willing to move into a collaborative situation without any guarantees. Otherwise, that's called a contract. So trust is, so when I first wrote the story factor, one of the things that I said is that, you know, people do not want more information from you. What they want is faith.  Yeah, yeah. And that's, by definition, I would also call that trust. And so to be able to understand that we're not, we're out here where the buses don't run, you know, when we're talking about trust. Ah, so many things. But I know we have, there is a build-up in the topics we have. So let's use our time wisely and sort of try to move into, from this conversation about trust, move into the second topic. And not sure if I narrowed it down to two words correctly, but I have moral systems as a topic here. Well, let's just start at the beginning, which is why do we need morals? Why do we care? That's a big question. So I'm pretty sure no business person is going to say, you know, my job is to save the rest of the world, even though frankly it is. But morals, it's just like that faith. You find morals where you find emotions. And you find emotions where you find morals. And so if we're talking about, you know, what is it to be kind? What, you know, how do you define not? It's different in every single situation. I would give one specific circumstance. If I am going to be providing good service, I need to work in a community, and I really love that y'all get that it's about the community. I need to work in a community where I'm not afraid to make a mistake. I need to work in a community where I think things are fair. Okay? Fair is a huge driver for human beings. So here's, let's look at fair. Fair is whoever needs it the most gets the most, like the people after the hurricane. Well, no, no, no, fair is that we all share equally. Well, wait a minute fair.  I just spent 10 years working on it. Fair is whoever spent whoever worked the hardest. You just came in here. You want to monetize me. Well, no, no, no, no fair is whoever brings in the most bucks, right? Yeah. Or fair could be, and I always forget the fifth one, fair could be, oh, whoever got there first. It's been here the longest. You know, I get the most because I've been here the longest. Well, in our communities, create a situation where we understand the concept of fair in a shared way. That takes stories because if we make it tactical and, you know, well, fair means that everybody gets the same, which is what HR would do, right? Everybody treat the same. Well, people out in the field, they're like, are you crazy? You know, I've got some really talented people here. Fair is, you know. And so storytelling is the way for us to look at these moments where we feel connected and we feel connected when things are fair. We feel connected when people are kind, when they're tolerant. And so understanding these, okay. So one of the things that I talk about is the King Midas. King Midas as a spreadsheet. And basically the story is that, you know, King Midas wanted everything he touched to turn the gold. And then he touched his daughter and he killed her and turned her into a gold statue. Well, as a story, that's real clear, the knowingness of what is right and wrong. You put that on a spreadsheet. Man, you got return on investment, infinite. And all you have to do is, you know. So understanding that the morals are where people care. Not just that I would like the world to continue to exist, which I would. But we need morals if we want people to feel connected. Because the function of disconnection is immorality. And stories are the way to share morals. Okay. Well, here's my idea. And it's not just my idea. Evolutionary psychology has demonstrated that, you know, evolution invented emotions for a reason. And evolution invented this whole storytelling thing where you tell circumstances where you have strong emotions of what you do want and strong emotions about what you don't want. We learn how to be human beings with these stories. If evolution was reinforcing stories so we continue to survive, its agenda would be the good of the many over the good of the few. So when we look at this profit, you know, sort of frame and everything has to have a return on investment by the end of the first quarter, then all you're doing is reinforcing the individual is more important than the collective. And you can see what's happened in American politics, all these fear stories. That's what happens when you optimize the individual. And to everybody who doesn't live in America, I'm terribly sorry. We're trying to get our act together. We hope that gets better. How would, because this is a really important point and I think on a daily practice, I don't think about a deep level like morals and the way stories impact that. Now that you've shared this, how do you, could you give us some advice to the design community? How we could use or leverage this in our day to day practice? Right. First of all, I would recommend that you go back to the original source. So all of these old myths and that sort of stuff existed for a reason and they carry in them these collaborative frameworks and lessons and all that sort of stuff. So recently I was looking at the way that people are treating stories right now and so there was a TV show that talked about hero stories and the hero story they chose to tell was, they called it Ivan and the Deathless Wizard. Well, I know that story as Maria, I can't remember the last name. It's a Slavic story. And through the hero story, they just went straight to how Ivan has to go and capture this wizard who has captured Ivan's wife, Maria. Well, the way I heard the story was number one, Maria is the queen of the castle where they live. Maria is the warrior princess and Maria had to go fight a war and so she told her husband Ivan to leave that door locked and then she went off. Now we know what happened. Ivan can't stand. He's going to open the door and that's where the wizard is and that's how the wizard got out in the first place. The next thing they left out was the three, what I call the three creatures. When you leave the hero, when the hero leaves, they don't just leave the unknown and go into the, I mean the known and go into the unknown. All of these templates leave out the three creatures, which is there's a little bird that needs some food or there's a baby fawn that needs to help rescue.  So if we look at these random kindnesses just by studying the myths in their form before they got digitized, we will find some amazing beautiful ideas about, you know, what does it take to create random kindnesses and how do we develop stories that associate these long-term benefits when there's no argument that there's a short-term cost. And so a lot of the, oh, and, okay, I'm going to be diplomatic here. I have an issue about the term cognitive bias. Okay. The term cognitive bias, like loss avoidance and all that sort of stuff, actually to me is evolution's little guidelines for how emotions should be biasing our actions in ways that the literal truth wouldn't necessarily. And so loss avoidance is not an error in judgment. It is a pattern of survival. Yeah. And I just get, I just think that if we would take all the cognitive biases out of the error box and put them into the examination and let's see what the benefit is there, I think the ideas would just flow. So what I, for instance, get out of this is, maybe it's too simplistic, but you said go to the source, but also take, when you're crafting a story, take the time to tell the whole story and cut to the chase and make sure you tell the whole picture, right? Not just... One of the things for me that's missing from communications is the human presence. And so when I teach communications at Brookings Institute, for instance, one of the things I do is I use design thinking as the framework for understanding how to design the communication. So most of these people are in workplaces where, you know, a lot of tension, a lot of stress are in me right now. And so the discovery phase is understanding everybody else's story, what makes them think what they think. The patterns, I mean, that's obvious, but the guidelines, I would also say, is a place where we put a moral, ethical guideline because it's good for your image. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's put the video out just recently about toxic masculinity, Nike. They're the ones that put Colin Kaepernick. So ethics, if for no other reason, do actually heighten your visibility. Let's... We already touched upon this. So let's just move into the third and last topic. And again, you touched upon this and this is profit and connections, emotional connections. Yes. So what's the relationship is one of things, connections will show up as inefficiencies. Back when, in the 80s, when I worked for Ericsson, we had tea breaks.  And that experience of sharing information, we were in exports so we weren't always in the office at the same time, that was a functional exchange of information and positive feelings. Now, I get paid now to come in and teach storytelling and teaching storytelling is fun, but also the way I teach it help people to understand what each other's stories are. We move so fast. We don't know the story of the person in the, you know, cube next to us. And so if you look at it by removing that tea break, we've had to actually add financial investments because we didn't realize we were throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And so this whole idea that you've got to show a return on investment on every single little detail is, we won't do it. Morals are going to require personal sacrifice. If we're going to solve climate change, right? We're going to have to change the behaviors. And so the way that we can actually make our businesses more responsive and more inclusive is also going to be a way to contribute to whatever behavioral changes we're going to have to undergo before we get our act together on big global challenges.  And if you can take three cents off it, I don't know if you worked in automotive. Then you've made a million dollars. Well, we're going to have to start to look at the long-term payoffs. And we have to budget for morals. If we don't have a budget that takes care of ethical behavior, then, I mean, because ethical behavior is always expensive. It costs you time, or it costs you money. And if it hasn't lately, I'm not sure you still have it. So you're trying to enter it. Well, that's an interesting point that ethics are expensive, right? That's what you say. Yes. What is the price of, like, not doing it, right? That's the bigger question, because eventually we'll die. Well, see, I do a lot of community work. I do a lot of social justice work. And so what I do is you can't connect with somebody if you can't identify with them. And so I'm usually in a situation where people are underserved, and they're trying to communicate to whoever is basically oppressing them, or who's saying they're not worthy of a place to live or whatever, because they don't work hard enough. What I'm trying to do is to understand for them, in order to get into their creative intelligence, they've got to have some positive story to tell themselves about whoever they consider to be the bad guy. And here's the story I tell myself. To be an exploiter, to actually exploit every opportunity without leaving something on the table, turns you and dehumanizes you. And it isolates you. And it makes you afraid. And we call that anxiety in today's world. And so that's the price we pay when we don't allocate, when I don't have enough cash in my pocket to give a homeless person while I'm walking down the streets of Durham downtown. I know what it takes for me to continue to love life. I think that we want our employees and we want our consumers to love life. But that does take a budget. What would your, if you could give an advice regarding storytelling and then your book is full of them, so I would recommend everybody to buy the book and just read the book. Well, October is when the third edition is out. So until what tip would you give? Like if you're going to learn about storytelling or embrace storytelling in your own practice, what would you say? Okay, I believe that in order to learn how to tell stories, the best place to start is how to tell your own story.  And what that will force you to do is to blend integrity because almost everybody's who I am story is a story of some sort of integrity. I mean, that's just the way we're made. I'll admit I've run across a few who I am stories and they were like, you know, I have this killer up and it really screwed all these people and now I'm a millionaire, but okay. That's not the kind of people I want to help. So who you are. And then I get four buckets. A time you shined, a time you blew it, which is also a really good time that shows what you'll never let happen again. A book or a movie, which is letting someone else who's an artist. And by the way, this is the story, the art part of story is the hard part. If you try to science story, all you get is a descriptive definition.  So find your who I am, why I'm here story. Tell it to somebody else and you'll begin to get the skills for what it takes to cause a story to do its work, which in this case would be instead of you saying, my name is Annette and I'm trustworthy. I can say, this is what I did last week and then you decide whether I was trustworthy or I am trustworthy. So that's, is that advice helpful? Yeah, absolutely. I think that's sort of, it feels like what you said, learn storytelling by telling your own story. Absolutely. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, too many people approach it in some sort of way that technically should work. But as we know in design thinking, it doesn't. So this whole idea of testing stories as a tangible whole rather than trying to build elements of stories and then cram them all together. Awesome. I know you haven't prepared for this question, so you're going to have to improvise, but is there a thing you'd like to ask the viewers or the listeners of the show? Is there a thing you'd like us to think about? I think this whole idea about budgeting for morals or else using morals to find secrets for service. I would like to know if that, I mean, I imagine that would be helpful, but I'm not sure whether it is. I'd really like to hear back if you think that has lags. Let us know in the comments. I'm really curious what people will say. Great topic for the design community. Perfect topic for the design community. Annette, I think we could spend another two hours talking. I think I'll try to address storytelling much more on the show in the coming episodes. Who knows what will come up, but you did a great job sharing your perspective. So thanks for making the time. Well, thank you. Thanks for letting me be part of the community for a bit. We embrace you and welcome you to our tribe. Thank you. So what is your biggest takeaway from this episode? And what is your perspective on Annette's question? Make sure to leave a comment down below. And if you know somebody who might benefit from the things we've just discussed, please share the link with them and help us to grow the community. And speaking about storytelling, if you'd like to learn how to explain service design in a way that anyone understands, make sure to check out the free course that I've got for you over here. Thanks again for watching and look forward to seeing you in the next video.


Good morning everybody, Andrea Torewska here with dental oil tutoring.  So I want to talk to you guys about that a little bit because this is the most common problem that students email me with. They email me saying you know I don't know what to do, I don't even know if you can help me, because I'm in my semester now. So either they have just finished it or they're at the end of their semester and they're pretty much saying to me I got horrible marks, I'm barely passing, I need to pick things up, but I don't know how, I don't know what to do differently. So let me tell you guys what you can do differently because there actually are things that you're probably doing wrong and you don't realize it. So you might be looking around you or seeing other students marks and thinking okay well they are getting like 80s, 90s, yet they're saying that they study the night before and you might be that person who takes like two weeks to study and you pretty much feel like you are spending every waking second studying, but you're not getting the marks for it and that reason is likely because you are not studying the right way. So there is such a thing as studying too much and there is such a thing as not studying enough. So there is a fine line. If you're studying like every hour of every day that is too much. Not because you are learning too much, but it's because as they student, as a human being, if that makes sense, you can't do something all the time and then expect to do a good job. Think about it if you were to work somewhere. If you work 30 hours a day or whatever, you're doing a lot of work, you're managing, but your performance is probably lacking and you're not doing a good job because eventually you need to take a break. You need to eat, you need to sleep, you need to do something else because then it's a lot harder for you to go back and do the same thing the next day because you're still tired from the day before, you're annoyed because you feel you have had to work so much yet you have to do the same thing over again. Even having a job working full-time, nine to five. If you did that all day every day and maybe took a vacation every couple years for a couple days, that's it. You will quickly become burned out and no matter what you do, you can't do it properly. So for students, it's the same thing. If all you are doing is thinking school, not having fun, you're working on homework, projects, tests, assignments, everything all day every day, then nothing you do will be at its full potential. Now I say this too though, as a student you do have to think, well this is my life now.  You will not be able to have as much fun as the people around you who aren't in school but you should still do something else. You should still take a break. It makes a big big difference because unfortunately once you reach that point where you're not passing a lot of your classes, you are studying so much where you don't know how to change that and your marks just aren't up to par. Once you get to that point, you quickly become not angry but you quickly become discouraged.  It's kind of too late because I'm not passing. How can I pick this up like I don't know where to even start. That can be hard for people to pick themselves up again but that's what you have to do. You have to put all of that in the past and from here on in you have to work hard. Study properly. Study in a way where you are actually focused and doing it properly. Stop thinking like well if I couldn't pass the first time I don't see how I'm going to pass the second time because now there's more on the test. You know don't think negative, think positive. Think everything happened in the past. Tomorrow's a new day and now is the time to get started but you also have to change things meaning stop studying every single hour of every single day. Okay so for studying six hours maximum is how much you should be studying. Not you know eight hours nine hours ten hours all night no and never wake up early to study. You need your sleep. If you can try not to study past seven o'clock your evenings should be for you know eating, for recharging, for watching a movie, reading a magazine, anything like that. Now this this does depend though on your schedule. For me as a student I didn't have a choice. I pretty much had to study after a certain point because I would go to work right away after school and I'd be done at around 11 30 at night. So what I actually did was I would manage to get my studying done on the way to work because I had to take the subway that took about an hour maybe 45 minutes to get to work so that's when I would plan it in. But then also sometimes when I got home yes it might be midnight but I wasn't tired so I would study a little bit and that would pretty much put me to sleep right away. So it depends on you as a person too sort of when you study the most effectively but overall I do suggest not waking up early you know no waking up at two in the morning none of that no studying until one in the morning and then trying to sleep after that try not to do that. But I do understand if you have kids you have other things you have to do that may be your your only chance to study but if possible you guys hire somebody to watch the kids ask the husband ask you know the wife to watch your kids for a couple hours they will be fine okay I don't have kids so I can't speak from where you're coming from but you know what you guys this is an investment into your future you do not want to pay all of that money and then not be able to pass your classes and then you'd have to drop out because you can't pass right but every situation is different so if you need help with this please let me know please send me an email if you need even more help feel free to have a look into the dental L student program because I will tell you guys exactly what to study each week we have tutoring lessons every single Sunday online so if you have questions need help need a pep talk need anything I am here to help there's modules uploaded online you have tons of information so there are plenty of ways to study properly okay so if you guys need anything let me know I do hope this helped because I did decide to hop on and do the video because I probably had at least five students emailing me over the weekend with the same problem saying I'm almost done my semester I want to start the new year and do a good job I want to actually pass everything I want to do a better job but I don't know how to change things to be able to reach that so I do hope this helped every situation is different so if you need help just do not hesitate to let me know see you guys later thank you so much for watching


the surface around him gets infected with the droplets. Also, when he touches his face or he touches his nasal secretions, his hands are infected and his hands will touch other surfaces which get infected. Now, when we come in contact with these infected surfaces and then we touch our face, we also tend to get infected and that is how the spread occurs. Therefore, the most important thing is to wash our hands. If you wash your hands before touching yourself, before touching your face, then the chance of getting infected comes down markedly. So, when do we wash our hands or each time before you touch anything, each time you touch a surface, we don't know as we are living, as we are living our lives, we will definitely touch something or the other. So, the more often we wash our hands, the safer we are. And how do we prevent this? We prevent this by avoiding crowded places. Because if we go to a crowded place, no chances of coming into contact with droplets from an infected person.