Okay. Good evening. Sorry. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Welcome to the session on lifestyle evangelism, right? So what we're going to do is this course we're going to be talking about how evangelism is part of our life, right? So it's not like I have to be an evangelist to evangelize with people. All of us can have a lifestyle of evangelism. So welcome to those who are joining us online as well. I hope you were able to log in conveniently. Thank you for joining this course. I hope that you will have a blessed time as well. The notes have been, for those who are online, the notes have been posted on the stream. So please feel free to download them and track along even as we learn together. So before I start the course, I want to talk about the grading system, right? So we will have two assessments. One will be in the second week of September, we will have a 50 mark assessment. Then in the end of November, we will have assessment two, which will be a final assessment. And we'll put both together and that will be a final grade, right? Is that okay? So let's begin today's class with a word of prayer. Let's pray and ask God to minister to us even as we study together. Father, we want to thank you for this beautiful time that you have given us. We thank you for your presence in our lives. We thank you, God, that we can learn at your feet to God. We pray for your wisdom, for your Holy Spirit to lead us and to guide us every step of the way. Lord, even as we sit together and learn, I pray God that your Holy Spirit will minister to us, Lord. Teach us to walk in your ways. We thank you. We submit this time into your hands. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen, amen, amen. All right. So even as I start teaching even students who are here, you can feel free to ask questions, students online. Feel free to post your questions. I will look at the chat section every now and then and if you have questions, feel free to stop me. All right. Do you have your notes with you? Do you have your notes? Okay, probably you'll get your notes soon. So we'll go to the first chapter. We're talking about sharing Jesus. Why is it necessary and why is it urgent? Why must we share Jesus to people? It's a question that we must ask ourselves. Why must we share Jesus? Is it because we have nothing else to do? Or is it because Jesus has called us to share? Why must we share Jesus? Or is it because I want to become a pastor? I want to become evangelist? I want to become a prophet. What is the reason for us to share Jesus with people? Before I go ahead, I just want to ask, is there anyone of us who have shared the gospel with maybe a person from another faith? And after you're sharing with them, they have accepted Christ. Is there anyone, maybe even the online students, anybody here? You've shared Jesus or you've tried sharing Jesus with people from other faiths and probably it went well. Probably it didn't go well. Anyone here? Yeah, this is a lot of it. Great. So we will leave some time to also hear from you all. Pick it very interactive as well. Anybody online? You have shared the gospel with people and it has been successful or not successful. You can feel free to put it on the chat as well. The people are saying yes, but there was no response. No problem. So let's try and try to learn how to effectively evangelize with people. So let's read Matthew chapter 28. Matthew 28 verses 18 to 20. Matthew 28 18 to 20. Maybe any one of us here can read it. Matthew chapter 28 was 18 to 20. Thank you. So Matthew chapter 28 18 says Jesus is this last few moments on earth, right? Now, what would you do if it was the last few moments? You will speak the most important things that come to your mind, right? You're not going to tell the person, hey, make sure that my friend knows where I'm going. You're not going to talk. You're going to tell them what is the most important thing. And Jesus has got all the people there and he's going to go up to the father. This is the last time he's going to see them. He didn't say, remember the miracles I did? Remember how I walked on water? How I made the blind sea or the deaf fear? He didn't say all of that. What did he say? He said, go and make disciples. How do you make disciples? He follows it up there. Read that. Go and make disciples. What does he say after that? Sorry. Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Then what else he says? Sorry. Teaching them to observe all things. That is dear. Sorry. That I have commanded you. Teaching them one, go and baptize. Go make disciples. Baptize them and teach them. This is the order that the Lord Jesus said. He gave us a commission. What did he say? Go and make disciples. So what is our first responsibility here on earth? Is to make disciples. Is to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the people around us. Now it does not mean that we quit our jobs, quit our work. Leave our family, run away, go to a mountain, start praying for... We don't do all that. But God is calling us to make disciples. How do you make disciples? By being a witness. So first point. We are called to be witnesses of Jesus Christ. What is a witness? We have two things. You have a witness, you have a eyewitness. You go to the court and there is a soul court that is sitting there. And the one who has been charged. And then there is an eyewitness. What happens if there is an eyewitness to a robbery? What happens if there is an eyewitness? The case is resolved. He saw you. He saw you robbing. He's an eyewitness. You can't change that. Jesus is calling us to be a witness. So wherever we go, whatever we do, we must represent Jesus. Is that easy? Yes or no? Is it easy? It's not. But Jesus is saying, I've called you to be a witness. His witness. Right? Now, each one of us have different gifts. Have different functions. Right? Some of us may say, hey, but I'm not, we're learning lifestyle evangelism. But I'm not a pastor. Sorry, I'm not an evangelist. I'm a pastor. Or I'm a worship leader. Or I'm an apostle. I'm a prophet. I'm not an evangelist. I can come preach. If people come, they will listen to me. Okay, I don't like to go on the road. I don't like to go here and there and talk to people about Jesus. And that is the wrong understanding. Why? Because what did Jesus first say? Go. Everyone say go. Go. Jesus didn't say come. He said, go. So you and I have to go to make disciples. Right? But the different gifts and functions we all have, we are called to be witnesses of Christ. Right? Maybe we are, for example, we are just working. Right? Give me this example. There was this one time we were in Orissa many years back. And in Orissa, there was this, we had a, there was a conference that was happening. And in that conference, there was a lady who was a housewife. Right? And she would come and sit for the conference and all of it. She said, I have a church also, but I'm a housewife. I look after my house. I look after the family at home. I have children. After the three-day conference, on the third day, she said, can you and the pastors come and, you know, just teach something to our church? Right? I said, okay. She said, we'll send the way till you come. I said, okay. So we went and they went deep into the jungles in a car and there was nobody there and when we reached the place, it was inside the forest in Orissa. There were about 600 people sitting there. I remember asking this lady, I said, is this your church? She said, yes.  She said, yes. So how did you start this church? She said, I started. God told me to start. I started. We started with 10 people. Then whoever I saw, I met, I shared about Jesus. And when I prayed, people were healed. There were 600 people sitting there. She's a housewife. And she doesn't know the impact she's made. I don't know how to read. I pray, I get a message and I share that message. What is she? A housewife. But she was a witness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So we all have different functions. We all have different gifts. But that gift and function is not for us to display ourselves. Yesterday, we were talking about laying the axe to the root of pride. The gifts God gives us is not to display ourselves. Oh, I know how to do this or I know how to preach. I know how to be an apostle or a prophet. I know how to prophesy. It's not to show ourselves, but it is to make disciples of Christ. That is why God is giving us this gift. So this should be assured in our heart. Each one of us. Even when we may complete our college, those three years or two years, whatever, and we go from here. You may feel that, hey, I've achieved it. But remember, it is through the grace of God. It is his gift. Without his gift, what are we? Nothing. So it's very important that we understand that the gifts God give us, we have to use it for his kingdom to be a witness. Whether it is worship leading, whether it is pastoring, evangelism, even the smallest of things being a witness is very important. Let me give you this example. There's a story of this man. I forget his name, but he was from the Muslim faith and he's a powerful. How many of you know of Hamas? It was a terrorist organization that was functioning in the early 70s. And this man was part of the Hamas group and he was a terrorist. And somehow, radically, his wife accepted the gospel. But we know that in the Muslim faith, if you accept the gospel, the husband is okay to kill and it's okay to be done with them. But he loved his wife. He said, see, first of all, I'm a terrorist. I'm in this, all these things. And you're saying, I believe in Jesus.  So you keep quiet. He says, okay, for your sake, I'll keep quiet. But every day she would pray. God changes life. Show him the truth. Show him what the truth is. Now I'm not talking about some regular guy. These are hardcore terrorists. These are people who are used to killing. They have seen blood. Killing is no big problem for them. But she would pray as a wife. And he would always get angry and say, see, he really cared for his wife. So he didn't want to hurt her. But one day, I'm cutting the story very short. But what happened was one day he had a dream and he's standing on the mountain. And on the other side of the mountain was another man. And the man is saying, you'd start walking. And in the dream, he's saying, no, I can't walk. Take a step. The moment he takes a step, the mountain becomes a valley. It just becomes straight and he walks up to Jesus. And Jesus is saying, this is what I am. I'm calling you for the ministry. Somehow he didn't believe that dream. He said, no, I can't accept this. But for the fear of his wife, they had to go run away and they went to the United States. There, they stayed in a pastor's house. Here's the example that I'm trying to bring out. He saw their life. No preaching, no teaching, nothing. He saw that they walked in love. That even though he was telling them Christianity is not right, it's all wrong. How can a man be God? And he kept saying all these things. But the pastors were only kind, patient and loving to him. And he says, the dream did not change me. But I saw a Christ-like attitude in them. I saw forgiveness. I saw love. I saw grace, which is not there in this other faith. And he accepted the Lord Jesus Christ. So sometimes more than our preaching, our witness talks more. Yes? Many times I've seen these cars. They have a bumper sticker. Jesus loves you. But they're fighting with people on the road. Why you came this side?  They're fighting. But the bumper sticker says Jesus loves you. Is that a good witness or a bad witness? It's easy to put the sticker. 5 minutes work. 10 rupees sticker, you buy, you put it there. No. God has called us to be a witness. When people see, they say, Hey, something different about him or her. So what is the necessity of sharing Jesus? Why should we share Jesus? Jesus says, go and make disciples. But why? Because every person in this world needs a savior. Every person in this world. There's no human being in this world that we know doesn't have sin. The Bible teaches us that we are born, sinners, born and sin. So in our heart, each one of us, we have a small place in our heart which only God can fill. It's called the God shaped vacuum. There's a vacuum in our heart which only God can fill. What do I mean by that? Let me give you two examples. There's this tennis player named Pete Sampras. I don't know if you know him, Pete Sampras. Wonderful tennis player. When he was a small boy, maybe six years old, he said, I want to play tennis. That's what I want to do. I want to go to the Wimbledon which is the best in tennis and I want to win the Wimbledon. So from six years old, his father will take him to the training. Early morning he would get up, he would go play tennis. Rigorous. He missed birthday parties, he missed friends. He missed everything in life. Why? Because his focus was one day Wimbledon. I'm going to go there and play tennis. I'll become the world champion. So at a very young age, by the time he was 23 or 24, he got into Wimbledon and he won the gold championship. From six years old, what he wanted to achieve, he achieved it. He went home. He kept that trophy on the shelf. When he looked at that trophy, he said, I feel empty. I feel like committing suicide. He was suicidal after that. This is meaningless. From six years old, I wanted to be a Wimbledon champion. Now I'm looking at it. I've become the Wimbledon champion but there's still emptiness inside my heart. Why? Because there's no God inside. Because only God can bring joy in certain things. There's happiness, there's joy. Happiness is sitting in the beach and looking at the sunset. Wow, very nice. But joy is even through challenges, even through difficulties. It's in our heart. Another example of why everyone needs a savior is this very influential man named Elvis Presley. How many of you have heard of Elvis Presley? He was a great man, a musician and everybody loved him. Very rich, very famous.  Nothing. Whatever we want in life, he had it. Money, house, everything. Fame, yes. But he writes and he says, in his biography he says, I feel so empty. That's why he used to take these prescription drugs to calm himself. Emotionally he was feeling empty. Can you picture these two things? One person worked so hard for something, achieved it, but he's still feeling empty. Another person has fame, money, everything. Still there's emptiness. Why? Because only God can fill some areas in our lives. There's a place in our heart. Only God can fill it. Nobody else. No father, mother, friends. Nobody can fill that. Only God can fill it. So we must understand that. We must settle that in our heart. God, without you, everything is meaningless. Bible teaches us that our sins have separated us from God. Let's read Romans chapter 5 and verse 12. Romans 5 and verse 12. Thank you. So our sins have separated us from God. And it has brought us into the bondage of Satan and the devil. What does the word bondage mean? It's a grip. It's like the enemy holding something. It's called a bondage. Now the Bible says that sin came into the world. We all became sinners. And because we are sinners, we are in bondage. Now who can break that bondage? Only Jesus. Only the Saviour can break a bondage. So that's why we need the Saviour. We all, because of the sin, we are separated from God and we are heading to eternal death, eternal hell and that separation from God. Now in the year 2022, if we preach about hell, people get angry. Or don't talk about hell. You talk about God's grace. God loves you. Then what else? God's mercy. All that is nice summons. Yeah, it's nice. But this is truth. Right? Because of sin, we are separated from God. Jesus himself says, there is heaven, there is hell.   And so to get people away from this, to save people from the works of the devil, they need a Saviour. Right? We need a Saviour because God loved us so much and he came to be our Saviour. John 3.16, what does it say? I'll say it again. It's like sheep.  So the word is whoever believes in him. Right? He can be the most twisted, most sinful person. But if he believes in Jesus, he has a new life. Right? God showed us his great love by sending Jesus to die on the cross for us. And Isaiah 53 says, He bore all our sins. Now this is the simple Gospel. Right? Jesus died, He took our sins and He bore all our sins. But the simple Gospel is so powerful. Right? That it can change a person's life. Did He ever think of that? And He's saying, Okay, Jesus came, He died on the cross. So what should I do? He died 2,000 years back in Jerusalem. I've never even gone to Jerusalem. So what should I do? There are many times I've shared with people. They've told me, Well, what should I do? Good for Jesus. He's alive now. They respond at times. But when you understand the revelation of what's happened here, it's different. And Jesus took up our sins on the cross. Our infirmities, our sicknesses. Right? Now the cross, the book of Hebrews says the Lord Jesus was obedient, obedient to even death on a cross. Right? Now why is it saying even death on a cross? Because the cross was the most humiliating death anybody can live. Anybody can die. Very humiliating. It's the worst. So when God chose to send His Son, He chose the worst form of punishment. Right? Let me tell you something about crucifixion. Right? The Persians came up with crucifixion. The whole thing of crucifying people. But the Romans, they mastered it. They were able to, you know, they did the most number of crucifixions. Now what they would do is they would crucify people on the roads. Right? On the pathways. So as people are going, they can see people, bodies being crucified. Why? It was to tell people if you disobey the Roman law, the Roman government, this will be your final place. You'll be on the cross.  He has lost all his authority. You know, during those times, when the leper comes, what did people do? They had a different space, different area, they wouldn't come. But they would run away. But here, if somebody is on the cross, a leper can come and throw garbage on a person on the cross. Nobody will stop him. It was the most humiliating death. And God chose that because our sins, he had to take our sins on the cross. When we have that revelation, everything changes. Right? When people have that revelation, they will accept the Lord Jesus. Right? So everyone that needs a Saviour, it is because of sin. And sin will, God will take care of those sins. God has taken care of the sins. Now here's why everyone needs a Saviour. Very important. Salvation is a free gift. Everyone say free gift. Right? Nobody gets a birthday present and says hey how much did you pay for this gift? What did I say? How much did you pay? Tell me. Nobody does that. If you do that, don't do that. Right? It's a gift. It's given freely. Nobody gives you a gift and say okay tell me how much I'll pay you for it. Nobody does that. Now salvation is a free gift. All of you know about Jesus? How much did you pay Jesus? Did you pay any amount? Did you pay a price?  Was there any work that you had to do? Did God tell you go to the gym for one year then you will be saved? Now why? Because it's a free gift. It's given freely to us. So when we are preaching or sharing the Gospel with others understand it's a free gift. People may accept it people may reject it but we are doing what God has called us to do. Right? We'll talk about different aspects on how to react and how to respond when people reject the Gospel. But it's a completely free gift. God has set us free from sickness sin, Satan all the works of the devil, everything that comes upon us, God has set us free. So we don't have to live in bondage. Now if you have a good news, will you not tell your friend? You will go and tell your friend no. I remember in school when I get good marks in my exams I would go and tell my friend hey see my answer paper if it was bad marks I would keep quiet and sit down. But it's something good you will go and tell your friends right? You know in school you say hey tomorrow is a holiday ah you'll be so happy tomorrow is not a holiday but I'm just giving you an example right? You like to tell good things to your friends how much more is this complete free gift that we are giving to people right? Second point there is only one saviour and that is Jesus Christ first one was everyone needs a saviour So who is that saviour? It's saviours only Jesus Christ Let's read Acts chapter 4 and verse 12 Acts 4 12 I hope the people online students online are tracking along feel free to ask questions if you'd like to as well. Acts chapter 4 and verse 12 Yes anyone read there is no other name under heaven by which you must be saved there is no other name is there any other name? So the writer here of Acts is saying there is no other name where you can find salvation First Timothy chapter 2 verse 5 and 6 Let's read that First Timothy chapter 2 verse 5 and 6 First Timothy chapter 2 verse 5 and 6 Yes go ahead anyone can read Amen. It's a powerful verse right? There is one mediator between God and man the man Jesus Christ So there is only one saviour You know in this day and age that we live in there are so many options that people have right? I will say I will go to yoga some say I will go to counsellors some say I will do this and that but none of these things will save us from our sins Now here is the important thing in evangelism you must believe this right? If you believe something you will be able to share it with conviction right? Yes or no?  Will you think and say immediately APC Bible college Why?  You know So like that when you know something nothing can change that your friend can't come and tell you Are you sure it's APC Bible college or did you go to another you will say I know no I went Remember the testimony of that blind man Jesus heals him and says don't go and tell anybody go back home but he goes and tells everyone hey I was blind now I see and what do people say? No no no you were acting said see I know one thing I was blind now I see you can't change that you said who healed you Jesus were you blind before I am telling you I was blind I know before I could not see now I can see I don't know about who healed me and all of that my conviction is I was blind now I see go call his parents his parents came how is your son saying I don't know again the blind man saying I told you I was blind now I see you can't change it you can't pay him money and say tell you were not blind they tried to do that the Pharisees they said go you just don't say anything go they tried to cook up a story but he said no no no I know I was blind now I see that is called conviction when you and I are convicted that the Lord Jesus died for us and he is our only saviour nobody can stop you from believing that nobody they will come and say Jesus Jesus is over thousand twenty years back now there is new Jesus different kinds of Jesus many you know Paul writes in Timothy he says there will be new people coming there will be false prophets saying that they are Jesus so there will be new people but if you are convicted that there is only one saviour and his name is Jesus nobody can stop what you are doing whether you share the gospel when you share the gospel whether they believe or know that will not change one day Billy Graham was in the airplane he was sitting he was travelling to some place the person next to him was an atheist an atheist is somebody who doesn't believe in God and that man looked at Billy Graham he said you are the great evangelist he said yeah I am my name is Billy Graham ok so you really believe that Jonah was followed by a fish he said yes and the man said how can you believe that it doesn't make sense a man be in the belly of a fish for three days and then come out doesn't make sense if the bible says that Jonah swallowed the fish that also I will believe why because the bible says conviction so people say your sins are not forgiven no you have to do this you have to do that then we are coming to Jesus by our works that is a failure because no work is going to accomplish salvation for us people are hurting people are searching and people need a saviour the problem is when we look at people we think that everything is fine with them they have a good house they have a good family they have everything going on well they don't need I don't think they need Jesus have you felt that I have felt that many times I have seen people everything is fine in their life children are good in studies they have got well settled in their life work is going on well everything is well they don't need anything but that is not going to serve the purpose remember that there is that emptiness which nobody can fill only God can fill we have all kinds of people around us the rich the affluent the wealthy the successful people but all these people want meaning and direction in life they want fulfillment they want happiness the examples that I gave you they have achieved everything in life but they were empty I have met a lot of very very rich people very well off and I was really surprised with what they have shared some of them have shared they said all this mean nothing to me are you serious doesn't mean anything to you it doesn't mean anything I don't mind staying in a small house but my son doesn't respect me my son doesn't care for me I don't have a son or there are people who I know who are very very very well off they don't have children they cry and say I have everything I have a child my next 4 generations can live without working but I don't have a child that's hurt and then when you look on the flipped side there are people who are poor with very less in life no shelter, no clothing they are hurting right even they need a saviour right when they get to know that this is what the Lord Jesus did it will change their lives right so the spiritual are always searching for an encounter with the truth meaning those who are spiritual in nature now how many of you are from other faiths anybody from another faith you have come to Christianity ok ok were you from a religious what background are you from Hindu background and you brother Hindu right those who are searching for spiritual things in life I am not talking about Jesus I am talking about spirituality they are searching I want to know I want to see I want to understand those are the people whom God calls God begins to reveal themselves you know in the lockdown I was reading this article from Christianity today churches were all closed down ministry was all closed down but you know which is the fastest growing church in the world right now especially in 2020 and 2021 no in 2020 and 2021 the fastest growing church is the church in Iran in Iran the fastest growing church people are accepting Jesus everywhere when I say church is not one place I am talking about people from different places fastest growing church in the lockdown when I read that I was so happy I thought to myself ok we are not having service that's ok but God is not stopped his work the enemy may have brought covid and all of these things but will that stop God's work no Iran is the fastest growing church right and so the oppressed the suffering the depressed the confused the people they need help you and I can be their help how we point them to Jesus Christ right Proverbs 14 and verse 12 I'll read that Proverbs 14 12 there is a way that seems right to a man but its end is the way of death here's a very important point in evangelism we need to lovingly point people to Jesus now the mistake that we make is say what you're believing I mean if you have made that mistake I have made that mistake this one you are believing what is this this is not right you want to know the true God that is Jesus now they may ask questions back right never mock other religions right for them that is true we are called to point people to Jesus say this is something that helped me the Lord Jesus did this in my life we are to point people to Jesus right John 14 and 6 says the thief does not come except to steal to kill and to destroy but I have come to give life everywhere we look around us there is so much of death right so much of chaos destruction everywhere we see right now things are so uncertain and the Lord Jesus says I have come I have come I have come I have come the Lord Jesus says I have come to give life and life in abundance we all have different walks of life now I am sure that each one of us here have a different testimony nobody can say my testimony hurt is the same anybody can say that no all of us have a different testimony how we came to the Lord some may be from a different religion some may be in Christianity itself right but they didn't really know some people may have gone through a different difficult lifestyle some may have been rich some may have been poor so different testimonies but all these testimonies are to testify of the Lord Jesus Christ and his goodness upon our lives right God has commissioned us to share the gospel that's what we read about he said go and preach the gospel and that is what we have to do so what we will do is we will stop here we will pick up from next week and we will see what is the urgency now we saw that there is a necessity to preach the gospel next week we will look at the urgency why must we do it why there is a time limit on this because there is a time when the gospel will stop it can't preach anymore so there is an urgency so we will talk about that next week any questions any questions from those who are online any questions from here so everyone able to understand we just went through the overview and what we will do is the course goes on we will also try to do some practical ministry or practical evangelism we will talk about how we can share to a Hindu, how to share to a Muslim how to share in authority how to share in the anointing of the Holy Spirit and then what we want to achieve is that all of us wherever we are whenever we get an opportunity share the gospel bring people to Christ it's not easy but we are not doing it in our own strength the work has been completed what did Jesus say it is finished, I've done it so we are walking out of that victory I'll close with this example when Jesus died was it victory or defeat victory yes sure when Jesus died on the cross it was victory what did he say it is finished victory he said on the cross Colossians chapter 1 says he crushed every work of the devil he crushed the serpent's head but in the natural was it victory or defeat everyone were looking and saying done with his fellow causing so much trouble good he is dying let him go in the natural life it was defeat but in the spiritual it was a wonderful victory the work of the devil was finished completed it was done so remember that when you and I as believers whatever we are doing we are evangelizing meeting people in the natural we may look very awkward people may make fun of us people may ridicule and mock us but in the spiritual Ephesians chapter 1 says you are seated with him in heavenly places so you have authority the natural people will laugh but in the spiritual you have authority amen so walk in that authority let's close in prayer let's pray Father we want to thank you for able to learn together today O God we thank you for your work on the cross we thank you for what you have done O God thank you for the price that is paid and the victory that we stand and I pray God that you will be with us even as we go through this course learn together O God that you will give us a greater deeper revelation of the cross of the power of your word and Lord we pray that you will teach us to walk in this anointing O God that we will truly be people who will walk with a lifestyle of evangelism in our heart with the anointing of God upon our lives that you have given us not a spirit of fear but of power love and sound mind I thank you God I pray Lord that you bless each and every student you are sitting here the students online listening O God we will walk in this authority we will walk in this power to glorify your name we thank you God we thank you for all that you have done and all that you are doing in our lives we give you all the praise and glory in Jesus name we pray amen amen God bless you all God bless you students who are online see you next week have a great week God bless


And welcome, we are so glad to have you back here for another episode of The Non-Profit Show. And today's guest is Laura Engel, CEO with Abeja Solutions. And she's here to share five tips for choosing best appeal photos. So stay with us because these five you are going to want to write down. But before we jump into conversation with Laura we want to remind our viewers and our listeners who you are looking at or possibly listening to. So Julia Patrick is here today, CEO of the American Non-Profit Academy. And I'm Jarrett Ransom, your non-profit nerd, CEO of the Raven Group. We are so extremely honored to have the continued support from our amazing friends also known as presenting sponsors. So a huge shout out of gratitude goes over to our besties at Bloomerang, American Non-Profit Academy, your part-time controller, non-profit thought leader, fundraising academy at National University, staffing boutique, non-profit nerd and non-profit tech talk. These companies, I like to remind you they're here for you.  So please do check them out. They're amazing. And hey, we have produced nearly 800 episodes and there are so many places you can find us including streaming on broadcast platform, podcast platform, so wherever you listen to your podcast and now we have an app. So you can download the app on Android, iPhone, it will remind you every single day of the new episode that has been uploaded. So again, so many places to consume this information and entertainment and also so many places where you can share it with your board, your staff, your volunteers, so many different stakeholders. So please do check that out. And again, our guest today, none other than Laura Ingalls, again CEO at Abehah Solutions. Welcome back, Laura. Thank you, Jarrett. Yeah, tell us a little bit about Abehah but I always love to hear what the word Abehah stands for. Well, you know, we're based in Phoenix and Abehah means be in Spanish. That's because it can be a little painful to get direct mail done from the writing, design, the production, all of the data. And we really aim to take the sting out of direct mail. I love that. I love it. We love a pun, what can I say? No, I love it. And I think, you know, I think of when I look at your logo, I think of, you know, being busy in the hive of the nonprofit sector and all the things that we have to do. And we take people that are good at programming or working their passion and try and turn them into marketers. And that can be a disaster. And so I always value the things that you bring to us and talk about. And this is something that I don't think we talk about enough. And that's the power of photography. And when we're working with photography, whether it be print or in digital, what are some things that we need to really be thinking about? And so your first thing is for a best appeal, for a rule to follow, is to make eye contact. Yeah, absolutely. There, you know, as you said, photography is often and fundraising photography in particular, which is different, is often an afterthought at nonprofits. We write the appeal and then we scramble to find the photograph. But experts like Claire Axelrad actually say, you should choose the photograph first. And then write to it, which I think is really interesting. So my first point, yeah, is make eye contact. When you're actually taking a photo, if you look at websites like Save the Children, Care, the ASPCA, you will always see eyes looking back at you, the donor. And there's a reason for that. Really early in life, one of our first milestones is actually making contact with our parents. And we need that to create that emotional connection. So I can't tell you how many nonprofit websites, so many nonprofit donate pages I go to, that don't have those eyes looking at you. They have someone like the woman in this photo who's looking down or looking to the side. That's kind of a journalistic photo versus a fundraising photo where someone is looking at you. So right now go to your donate page and if you don't have someone looking out at the donor making that emotional connection, change it immediately. You know, Laura, just you saying that seems very much like a duh, like why have we not done that? And how have we overlooked it? Also in this photo, for those of you that might be listening, right?  And you're so right. Like I feel a connection with this young child and just that simple change, like you said, will make all the difference. So it's really alarming to me that we take this for granted. Yeah, and you can see that child, you know, on the outside of an envelope looking at you tightly cropped, right? Right. Yeah, it's a really interesting concept and I agree with you. Claire has been on our show before and I do like this idea of starting with the images and then working the story around that because I think it changes the way you communicate. Yeah, and if you go to those best practice websites like Care or Save or the ASPCA, those eyes are gonna follow you all around social media and all around the internet with those retargeting ads. So if you need an example, go there and take a look at what they're doing. I love that. I love that. Okay, let's go to tip number two and you advise us to get up close and personal. Yeah, absolutely. You know, at nonprofits, we are used to taking group photos, a whole bunch of people, a really large family, for example, or lots of dignitaries who are there, an entire family photo because it feels good to us as a nonprofit that we've served an entire family of people or entire group of people, but that's not what the donor is looking for. The donor is looking to make a personal connection. Fundraising is a one-to-one marketing art and you need to be one-to-one whenever you can. I think photos that have as many as three people in them, you just can't, you don't know where to focus. You need to be able to focus on one person. So this photo, you certainly see those penetrating eyes. It reminds me very much of the famous National Geographic photo of the Afghan woman with those arresting eyes and that was quite a close photo. Most of the photos you should be taking for fundraising are really shoulders up. You don't need those full body shots and you really don't need a full body shot with the organization logo behind them. That's another shot that we love to take at nonprofits because your direct mail person is just gonna crop that out. You're right. Yeah, because I've heard lately, like, do you have at your organization a step and repeat or a photo wall or someplace, where we can capture logos and sponsors and maybe even our vision and our values behind it, but really having that shoulder up, as you just said. Wow, that to me, it's doable. The one I think about Laura and Julia, you've been in production so much of your life. I don't think that nonprofits really invest the time and certainly the money into these photography assets. So having this conversation is so important to say, these photos are important and how you use them can make the difference. Yeah, and there is no cost to stepping three steps toward your subject and taking the photo. And we sometimes don't wanna do that because we think we're getting up into people's business. You certainly could do it with a zoom lens. You don't wanna do it with a digital zoom lens, but yeah, get a little closer. Another thing to keep in mind. So we had talked a little bit about brand names behind you. Might be fine for a staff photo. It's not a fundraising photo and it creates a particular problem called mergers. Have you ever seen a photo where a plant is coming out of somebody's head? Yes. Or a telephone pole is running through it. That's a merger. You generally want to avoid those. Yeah. The other thing with this photo, it's not ideal because it's looking down on the little girl. I think a more equitable angle on this would be to look at her straight on as opposed to slightly looking down. So that's one way that I find took this photo again, I would improve upon it. So that camera angle you're saying also makes a difference. So step close, get a up close and personal photo, but really look at where you are positioned because you're right. If we're taking photos of youth and we are a taller person, we need to get down to that eye level, as you just said. Is that what I'm understanding? Yeah, you really want to honor your subject and bring them as much dignity as possible. You still need to establish need and we can talk about that. But taking a photo from above shows that you're superior. Taking a photo straight on with them is neither inferior or superior. If you take a photo up, no one likes to be taken like this. Especially if you're getting older like me. But that can make a person look more dignified if you're slightly down. Interesting. So that's something to think about. Yeah, I love that. I think that equitable camera angle is a fascinating concept. I really do and I love, love, love that you brought this up. Okay, talking about tip number three, look for good light. Oh my God, this makes me crazy. I see this so often. Talk to us about this. Well, you know, photography literally means light writing. You're telling a story with light. So you've got to have good light. This is a classic photo that is taken every day at nonprofits. And can you tell me what the three light sources in this photo are? Yeah. Take a look. What do you see? Yeah, so for me, the first thing I see obviously is this like chandelier that I don't know if it's on the wall like a big chandelier sconce. And then I'm assuming, right? It also has overhead lighting. Yeah, that terrible overhead lighting that makes no one look good. Right?  Yeah, so why do you think this photo was taken? How does something like this happen? Everybody knows they can clearly see it. How did this photo get taken? Well, for me, I see it all the time when I facilitate board meetings and retreats where they're like, everyone's here, let's get a photo. Yeah, and we don't want to inconvenience the group, right? So we're just snapping a quick photo. We're actually thinking about using this photo in the future. Now, obviously this isn't a fundraising photo. This is a photo you might take for general communications or an annual report. So on short notice, the way to fix this photo is simply to turn the group around. And get the dominant light, which is the light from the windows shining on them. It certainly wouldn't be ideal because if folks on either end would have light on them and the people in the middle wouldn't. Yeah, the best thing they could actually do is say, hey, this photo is important and we're gonna take you outside where there's plenty of light. Right. Even better if it was in the morning or in the late afternoon when you get that beautiful golden hour light that makes everyone look beautiful versus the midday light, which cast shadows on people. But if you do have to take a photo in midday light, you might wanna find a place that's slightly shady, but you wanna look for shade that is uniform. You don't wanna have that dappled light where a tree is kind of filtering these little dots of light on people. So really think about the ink in your pen when you're light writing. I love that. It makes me think a little bit about that merger, as you said, where if we're standing in a shaded area and some people have the sunray cast on them, other people have a big shadow on them. And it's really hard to balance that. I also know, Laura, there are so many amazing platforms out there that even those that aren't publicist and editors, there's things that we can do to alter photos, right? We can remove backgrounds, we can put filters on it. How much of that are you recommending that we do to alter the light setting? Well, I think, yes, you can fix things in post, as we used to say in the TV business. And those tools are becoming amazingly complex where those tools are now even available on your phone to do those kinds of changes. And you can take really great photos with your phone if you are taking photos that are large enough. And we should talk about that. But in terms of light, do you really want to someone in your nonprofit to have to spend minutes or hours trying to fix a photo when you could take a photo right with the correct amount of light up front? I tend to try to do it right up front with my camera. And if I need to fix it in post, I certainly will. It's important also to do that when you're talking about people with different conflections. I don't know how often I see photos where people who have a complexion like mine look fine in the photo, and then a person of color does not. It's really an equity issue to think about the light in advance and how you're going to portray people. Yeah, I'm so glad you mentioned that because that has always been a struggle as well. And so to bring that complexion to the forefront as well. So very interesting. So for those of you that have joined us, Laura is sharing five of these tips. And we're on tip three, moving into tip four, which Laura, I cannot wait to hear. It's about to choose an emotion. And you have two, or we have two photos here, both dogs, but one looks really happy almost as if it's smiling. And the other one looks like it came from a Sarah McLaughlin commercial. Yeah, absolutely. And both of these photos, like the photo of the child, are taken close to ground level. It's not the photo of the dog looking up at you. I should mention that too. It works with pets. Fundraising is an emotional conversation from one person to another person. So yes, you need to be looking for emotion. There is some research that suggests that sad photos actually make more money than happy photos in a fundraising appeal. But I think it's, nonprofits had to think about more than just the money. You also have to think about your brand and your brand reputation. You've got to think about how you're portraying the beneficiaries of your programs. The only way to know for sure what's the right answer is to test, of course. So if you took 10% of your list and you showed a sad photo versus a happy photo, you would at least have some directional information. It may not be statistically valid about what your donors prefer. There is some research that suggests that he said, so you mentioned Sarah McLaughlin. So why do those photos always show a sad dog or a sad cat? It's because most of those commercials are to an acquisition audience, people who do not know them very well and sad photos show need or a neutral photo shows need. And so they're trying to really get people to acquire those donors. However, if you have donors who are really engaged with you and you're doing a great job of asking people to give, reporting impact back to them and thanking them for their donation, they may wanna see that their steady donations to you are making a difference in people's lives. And they may want to see that joyful photo. That impact that they're invested in, they've been following this journey and to see how that is positively making a difference. I love that. Yeah.  And that was like the trifecta of an appeal photograph. If you could find a white, a man, somebody that the potential donor could be like, oh my God, that could be somebody from my family. Right. And that was like the gold standard of how you moved through to communicate the need. And then you're absolutely right. Once we would find that donor who was engaged to show hopeful solution oriented images, like a happy family, a man working, things of that nature to show that all was not lost. Because you get compassion fatigue with your donors and these images very quickly, I think. And we don't talk about that enough. Yeah. You also may be referencing, I thought you were gonna reference the term poverty porn. I worked in the international, Yeah. I mean, I worked in the international development field and the classic sort of poverty porn photograph that does not show a person who is dignified. It goes beyond simple need and goes to actually really objectifying the person. Yes. Is the Ethiopian baby with flies on it? There are lots of folks in Ethiopia who do not look like that. And it's not an accurate representation. However, you also do need to show need and when in doubt for folks who do not mail four, six, eight, 12 times a year to their donors with those asks, I counsel people to choose a neutral expression on somebody's face. Okay. There's a big difference between, if someone is showing a neutral expression or a slightly grumpy expression, you are not objectifying them, but it does show need in an instantaneous way to people that a smiling photograph does not. So when in doubt, again, if you're not truly engaged with your donors, if you're trying to reach more of an acquisition audience, neutral to sad is probably the way to go. Yeah. So this takes us- You'll know it when it's poverty porn. Can you see? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's pretty obvious. Well, I feel like this takes us into the fifth tip for you here, Laura. And again, this is a great tip for choosing the best appeal photos. And number five, you have use real photos when possible. Cause I'm thinking back to tip four, right? We're going to search the web. We're going to find something that fits that, you know, opportunity and that's the image that we're going to pick. But no, a last number five is to use a real photo. Talk to us about this. Well, anyone who manages the social media account knows that the algorithms of Google and Facebook actually downgrade your posts if you're using stock photography versus real photography or in, you know, to put it in positive terms, they know when it's a real photo and they've reward you for that. Right. So there are some nonprofits that have to use stock photography because of the sensitivity of what they're doing. Our clients who work in women's or family shelters, they have very valid reasons, particularly while the case is still going on for not using real photos. But donors like the algorithms can tell. So this is clearly a stock photo of a baby. Tell me why you know it's a stock photo. Well, I'm from the age where, you know, it was always a Gerber baby and a Gerber baby looks so perfect. It's adorable, you know, everybody wants to hold the Gerber baby. So to me, that's, I see really that kind of image when I see this image of this young infant on its hands and knees. It does have eye contact, you know? Yeah. But that's what I see. What about you, Julia? I think it's just too perfect. I think it's very symmetrical. It's well lit and it doesn't seem to have any context to what the topic is. So for example, if it was a child, maybe in a park and you were working with a park theme or a zoo or it just is, it looks like it's in someone's home. Right. Yeah. Have you ever seen a baby look this clean? An actual baby? No. I bet your babies are not this clean. Two, if you have a baby, your floors are not this clean. My God, that's so weird. That's true. Both of those are very true. Yeah. That's so funny. Stock photography also portrays this sort of perfect upper middle-class homes. White cabinets, these perfect sort of wood floors, this sort of crate and barrel furniture. My home does not look like this. I often have to look at food bank photos because we didn't capture the photos when people were in the food bank or go to their homes to see them actually cooking the food. And it's really hard to find a kitchen photo or people eating that does not look fake. Yes. Oh, I can really appreciate that. You're right. Yeah, and I would have never thought of that either because there's so many missions supporting children and just to think of, okay, how do we imperfectly yet perfectly represent that child? It's so important. You have definitely opened my eyes and I have worked with you, Laura, for several years. But this is even more so made me aware of the photos we choose. Absolutely. Yeah, I think it's really important. And again, I really encourage people to take good photos right with light in a way that's meaningful and makes an emotional connection between the donor and the person that they're helping. And I think there's a thing that is, there's so many ways to engage volunteers but I think that it's a really cool thing to put out a call for photography to say, maybe a photography class or a photography club or somebody who likes photography, how do we get them engaged in telling those visual stories? Understanding that depending on what our sector is of service that we're gonna have some issues that we need to maintain, especially if we're working with children under the age of 18, minors under the age of 21, anybody that is in a judicial situation like domestic abuse or crime, I mean, there are things that we can't just get images of and put them out there. We have to be thoughtful and have releases and things of that nature. Yeah, and if your organization does not have a media release, I recently put a link on my Facebook page at a Bayhouse Solutions in order to, so people could actually download it and modify it on their own. So get a media release that protects you legally. And then all you have to worry about is all the ethical and equity questions of photographs. But you make a good point. Why not partner with a photography class that is learning about ethics here in Phoenix? We have the Cronkite School. They have photojournalists who are in training who would probably love to come and take photos. And you have those community colleges around the country and they've got those photo classes. So if it's possible, get those in people involved, but make sure that they are taking large photos. For print, you need 300 dots per inch or more accurately, 300 pixels per inch. You don't need these little tiny photos that you have on Facebook. Right, thank you for bringing that up because that is a really big problem for people in production to use images that they might look good on screen but they're not going to translate into the different formats that we often need them to be. This has been just a great conversation. There's so many things to think about. And you know, telling the story and communicating, we can work so hard, spend so much money, but at the end of the day, all that work can go away, it seems to me, Laura, if we don't have these strong images. We have a viewer that came in just a little late and wanted to ask you, who were some of these model nonprofits that you were talking about where we should be looking at their work because they do such a good job? You know, I always look at powerhouse nonprofits like Save the Children, care.org, ASPCA, and you will see they use very, even though they're working in slightly different fields, they are using the same kind of photography. Yeah. I like Shardy Water and the World Food Programs, Share the Meal, I think they do great work as well. Share the Meal that is a part of the World Food Program has moved to what you said, those really hopeful images. And it's remarkable that they have put that flag in the sand and that's what they're going with. Yep, it's a lot more complex it's a lot more complex than just making money. You need to think about your brand, but you also need to think about the dignity of the person that you're upholding. Yeah.  And I feel like the photography, right, needs to really mirror that same ethical storytelling. And that's what I hear often when it comes to this, Laura, especially through your five tips today. So thank you so very much for saying yes, bringing this to the forefront. I absolutely love what Abayha Solutions is doing, both you and Brianna, amazing women doing amazing work for so many organizations across the nation. So for those of you watching and listening, Laura Engels, CEO at Abayha Solutions, check them out. That is abayhaabeja-solutions.com. And again, tell us, tell us what you're here to do. Take the what, take the sting out of something. It can be really challenging for people to do all the story sourcing, writing, data, print production, design for their direct mail appeals. So that's what we do. We do it end to end just so that we can free nonprofits up for the things that might make even a bigger difference like calling that major donor. Yeah. I love it. We need all the help we can get. Laura Engels, CEO of Abayha Solutions. Again, I'm Julia Patrick. I've been joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself, Jared Ransom, who is going to be in New Orleans at the AFP Icon Conference, will be broadcasting from the Boomerang booth. So if you are on the showroom floor, stop by, introduce yourself. Mike Geiger, CEO of Association of Fundraising Professionals will actually be kicking off the whole thing with us there. So join us there and we'll get to get you maybe on air and at least get you engaged in how the nonprofit show gets made. And the nonprofit show does get made every day, now into our fourth year with our presenting sponsors, such as Boomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, nonprofit thought leader, National University's fundraising academy, staffing boutique, nonprofit nerd, and nonprofit tech talk. These are the folks that are with us day in and day out, making this show come on air every day. It's kind of like a miracle, isn't it, Jared? It is, I know, and Laura, again, you've been a huge part of the success and a part of the journey, so thanks to all of you. It's been amazing. Hey, everybody, as we end every episode, we wanna remind everyone to stay well, so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Laura, thank you so much. My pleasure, thank you. Everyone, take some great photographs. I'm looking forward to seeing your appeals in the fall and your end.


Welcome to the ITU studio in Geneva where we are joined in the studio today by Asaf Klinger who is the head of R&D for Volto and here as co-chair of the Security Workstream for Fiji Security Infrastructure and Trust Working Group as well for ITU. Asaf, welcome to the studio. Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here. Now I'd like to perhaps talk to you a little bit about security and we are looking at some of the main security issues for DFS providers with regards to SS7 vulnerability. So a couple of acronyms there perhaps you can tell us DFS digital financial services providers and SS7 perhaps you could tell us a little bit about what SS7 is and why it's vulnerable. SS7 is basically acronyms for signalling system number 7 which is communication protocols that were standardized by the ITU in the late 70s which is used for communication between switches and it evolved and was used in cellular communications and it evolved over the years from second generation up until third and now even into fifth generation version of SS7 is still exists today because of backwards compatibility. So why is that important for DFS? Because DFS in developing countries is mostly infrastructureed on cellular and mobile money, what you call mobile money and cellular networks in the developing world is usually second generation networks still or maybe third. The deployment of fourth or fifth generation networks or internet access is relatively low in the rural areas of developing countries which is the focus of the Fiji security and infrastructure work stream. So that means SS7 is extremely important to the security of DFS in the developing countries and why is it important to the security because SS7 is highly vulnerable to attacks. It was standardized and was designed in the late 70s. It was implemented in the 80s. Nobody thought about security back then. Nobody had in mind about security or hacking or hackers at that era. The network was designed to be a walled garden which is that because it was thought to be closed off and regulated by each country's telecom regulator the entry to the SS7 network was highly regulated so they assumed they don't need any security mechanisms inside because everybody who is inside is automatically trusted because of the walled garden approach. But today this approach is completely untrue because today a lot of actors and even a lot of bad actors are connected to the SS7 network for location based advertising for SMS. I'm sure you've gotten a lot of SMS spam spoofed calls for all sorts of kinds and this is why the SS7 network is no longer the walled garden it was thought to be and because there is no security mechanisms implemented inside of it it is a high risk for DFS in developing countries. So what are the main findings of the Fiji security infrastructure and trust working group report on this issue? The main finding is awareness. We did a survey among telecom regulators and among telecos and among DFS providers in those regions of the world and on those countries and explained to them saying are you aware that your network is vulnerable?  Have you ever tested to see how vulnerable is the network and in the most cases the answers we got is I have no idea. The answer we got from regulators says I have no idea SS7 was vulnerable. I had no idea that using SS7 I can hack bank accounts or DFS accounts and I had no idea that countermeasures were available. So I think the main finding of the report is that there is a complete lack of awareness of the vulnerability and the impact of those vulnerabilities on the DFS. The second one is the lack of adoption for countermeasures. There are countermeasures already available both commercial products and also guidelines that were published by GSMA for operators in order to safeguard the networks against these SS7 vulnerabilities. The implementation rate of those guidelines or of those countermeasures is close to zero and the problem is money. That's the second finding saying there's a conflict of interest between the financial regulator and the telecom regulator because if you have a bank account and you are hacked then the person in charge or the body in charge of emendifying the damage is the DFS provider which is not the telecom regulator but the hack came from the telecom and the telecom operator is responsible to close the breach but the telecom regulator does not enforce any regulation because there's no damage to the telecom industry from those vulnerabilities there's damage to the financial industry and telecom regulators and financial regulators seldom talk to each other and that's the second problem we identified a huge regulatory gap between financial and telecom regulators in the world. Should we be doing our banking transactions using our telephones at all then? You can do it using your telephones but don't do it over second generation networks using SMS or USSD. If you're doing it over the internet that's perfectly fine you know today's banking applications are secured with modern security protocols that go over the internet the mobile internet and that's good but the problem is that in the developing countries where those advanced networks third, fourth and perhaps even fifth generation networks are not available and only second generation networks are available there's no internet there's no mobile internet so the only medium for those DFS providers to authenticate users is by sending them SMS messages with one-time passwords which are easily intercepted and then used to gain by hackers to gain unlawful access to accounts and steal money. So what role can ITU play to help address the SS7 vulnerability in digital financial services? ITU is playing two roles two major roles first role is standardization I'm a member also of study group 11 in question 2 and we promote and write recommendations and standard for security protocols in order to add an additional security layer on top of SS7 which does not exist today which will enable a partial mitigation of those vulnerabilities once again depending on deployment and depending on adoption so standardization is key also recommendation is key working with the regulators in order to implement recommendations in how to structure networks in more secure fashion. The second role is an educator which is giving a floor and speaking and reaching out to those telecom regulators and also Fiji is also through the World Bank reaching out to those financial regulators and getting them to talk to each other I'll give you an example in Kenya there was a round table of the financial regulator and the telecom regulator and a result of that round table marvelous things happened implementations of countermeasures went up proper regulation was legislated locally in the country and I think that's a solution so ITU has two roles in here one is to standardize and add more security features to the existing legacy networks and the second one is to educate and and promote the round table discussions between the telecom and the financial regulators. I'm sure there can be some very interesting discussions over the next couple of days here but thank you very much for joining us in the studio and hopefully we will catch up with you again some change in the near future and get some more valuable insights from you. Thank you for having me Max. Thank you. Have a good day. Bye.


As you may have heard, YouTube.com bought Twitch.tv and this week they started imposing some changes to the website. First, on Monday they ended up shutting down a website known as JustinTV. This is the first live stream startup attempt that was started by the Twitch TV team and it was essentially Justin. He started live streaming his own life and people can tune in and then other people started live streaming like iJustine was one of the first people to join JustinTV and do some live streaming there but it really started to turn into a copyright streaming machine and a lot of the content being live streams was not actually owned by the people streaming to JustinTV and it was shut down on Monday and I guess that's kind of to be expected after the Google purchase of Twitch TV but on Tuesday Twitch TV added some sort of a new audio detection service to their VOD system and if you don't know what a VOD system is it's a video on demand so you can watch previous live streams that have already happened in the past so if say you wanted to catch Swifty live streaming yesterday but you didn't have time you could go back to his channel and go to his videos and watch yesterday's live stream and there's no issues with that in the past anyway but now they have audio detection so if they find a copyrighted song like say you used a copyrighted song on YouTube it would flag the video and you would have to either acknowledge that you used a copyrighted song in the video or dispute it well with Twitch what they decided to do for some reason is completely cut out all of the audio when that song is playing in the background so if you played Eminem in the background of your stream and it detected that song of Eminems and behind you when you're talking on your microphone it would mute the entire segment that that song was playing in the background even yourself when you're talking through the microphone so naturally the whole Twitch community is out in arms with their pitchforks and torches but I really want to know what you guys think in the comment section down below I'm going to give you my opinion which is I think this is a great change and a lot of you are going to be like what are you talking about well I think what they're trying to do is protect the live streamer if you look at Michelle Fawn for example she is a big YouTube star in the makeup section of YouTube and she's being sued for 7.5 million dollars because she used songs in the backgrounds of her videos over the course of however old her channel is and they claim that they are owed royalties for these songs that are in their videos and it's it's really unfortunate to see but she didn't get any sort of permission for these songs and they might have some sort of illegal ground here and she actually might lose a lot of money so I think what they're trying to do is protect the live streamer at the end of the day and I think it's a good change so again I'm really curious about what you guys think in the comment section down below I'd love to hear your thoughts I've been Alex Adams senior manager at Freedom and you've been watching click the first video for a fireside chat with George where he shares our future and how he grew from $20,000 to $120,000 in just one month and click the second video to see how to monetize all of your videos with just a few clicks to enable all ad formats and monetize in all countries and we will grow together as a family because this is the freedom family you are part of it we are all part of it and we're all growing together so grow with us and partner with freedom that play now button right there on the video bar is all you need to click to get started your secrets if you really look at yourself you will be speechless what happened to being doctors and teachers what happened to being your brother's keeper nowadays


Scratch motion blocks.  In this Scratchery Basics tutorial, we'll look at the X and the Y of a sprite as well as the direction and rotation, and we'll see what it means to bounce when on edge. Coming up. Hello world, Serving Scratchy here, teacher-serfer programmer bringing you the goodness of learning to code through video tutorials. If it sounds like something that you're into, then consider hitting that subscribe button. Hey, hit the show more button down below to check out the show notes for links that relate to this video. I've also got a link to my funky tee here, Birds of a Feather, which I found on Redbubble. If you click on that link and you purchase this tee or any other, it will support this channel as well as independent artists. So big ups from us to you. But hey, let's kick this tutorial into motion. Alright, we're going to be using this sprite called Modi to help us through this tutorial. We're also using the background from the Scratch online project editor. There's a card in the top-hand corner now coming your way to check that out if you're a bit fuzzy on the project editor. Let's look at our first block, and that is the move block. And what it does is it moves the sprite in the direction that it is currently pointing by this number of steps. So if we look at Modi, Modi is looking across the stage on the X-axis. I remember the X-axis because it looks like a cross and a cross goes across the stage. So it will move Modi across the stage by 10 pixels. Let's click it and you can see here the X-axis, our value here has updated by 10. If I press it again, it is now 20. So it will keep moving in the direction that it's pointing. You'll see if I modify the direction here to zero, it's now pointing up. And if we move 10 steps, Modi now moves up. And our Y value is changing. To check out our next two blocks, I'm just going to jump into a new backdrop. The next two blocks in the motion category refer to the direction that our sprite is pointing. So currently our sprite is pointing in the direction to zero. If we turn it clockwise, that's what this arrow is referring to. If I click it, you'll see that Modi turns in that direction by 15 degrees. Each time we press it, you can see the direction value updating. So currently it's 60. If we press it two more times, it should hit 90. And look, Modi is now pointing in the direction of 90. We can also go backwards any clockwise. And we can go into the negative values as well. Just going to switch back into our other backdrop to look at the next blocks. Okay, let's look at our next block. Go to random position. Which happens when I press this. Modi just goes to a random X and a random Y position on the stage. I'll press it again. And Modi has now gone deeper into the red zone. It's gonna be handy if you're building some enemies for a game. Now you can also specify the exact X and Y position that you want to go to. So you'll see that Modi is currently at this X and Y. And it defaults to those values inside these fields. So we can put Modi back to zero and zero, which is this center point. And once I press it, Modi is back in the center. All right, let's check out these glide blocks. Now these glide blocks are quite neat. It's sort of like an automated move block. What we can do is we can tell Modi to move over a number of seconds to a particular position. So over one second, let's click this, you'll see that Modi just moved to a random position. Just like the go to block, we can specify a specific X and Y value for Modi to go back to. So if we click this block, Modi should take one second to get back to the center of the screen. A disadvantage of the glide blocks is that it pauses the script so no other script can run in the sprite while this is animating. Okay, let's check out the point and direction block. This block is a coded way to modify the direction of the sprite. So down here in the sprite pane, you can modify the direction with this little pop up here. And you can also do the exact same thing by the code. So if I press this block, we should point Modi back in the direction of 90 degrees. All right, so to help us with our next block, I've just got this where the green flag is click block and this forever loop. So we've got this point towards blocks. So what this does is it orient or it points your sprite in the direction of something else. So here it's got the mouse pointer. You can also point in the direction about the sprites if you've got them available. So let's just whack this inside of our third block and watch what happens to Modi now when I move the mouse across the stage. So Modi is now pointing in the direction of the mouse pointer. You can see down here as well, our direction value is updating wherever we move around. So that's quite neat. All right, to help us out with the next blocks, I've just got these four hat event blocks. If you've been fuzzy on event blocks, got a card coming up in the top corner for you right now. So let's check out this change x by 10 blocks. So what that does it remember the x goes across the stage because x is a cross. So if I were to press the right arrow key on my keyboard, we would expect the right to move a cross to the right of the screen. So to do that, we could update the x value by 10. So watch what happens now when I press the right arrow key, you can see Modi is now taking off. Nothing happens when I press the left key. So what I can do is actually duplicate that block. And when I press the left arrow key, we want to change the x in the other direction. So we could subtract 10 pixels by doing that. Now watch what happens when I press the left arrow key, Modi is going back. Same difference goes when we want to change the y value. When press the up key, let's change it by 10. And when we go down, let's subtract 10. And you see Modi returns there. We can also specifically set the x and set the y value just like we did up here. So this go to x and y does it at the same time. But this does only the x or only the y so we can set both x and y back to zero. Okay, let's check out the next block. And that is this if on edge bounce. But this does is it detects when the sprite is at the edge of the screen. And if it does, it flips the sprite in the opposite direction to what it's pointing. So to help us illustrate what this looks like, I've got this when the green flag is clicked hat block and this forever loop attached to it. We're just going to stick this stack block inside of there. I'm going to scroll up and I'm going to get a move 10 steps stack block. So what we're going to do now is going to press the green flag. And Modi is going to go across the stage and watch what happens when Modi reaches the end of the stage. So Modi each time it gets to the end of the stage, the direction is flipping and you can see that down here by the direction value. So currently set to 90 hits the end of the stage and goes to negative 90. Okay, let's check out the last block that we have here and that is set the rotation style. There are three options that you can select from. Now this is just a coded way to do the exact same thing what happens here in the pop up. So you can set the rotation styles way full rotation so all round. And what that does if you move the sprite, you'll see that Modi just rotates all the way around. Now if you set it to left or right, which is this middle option here, what that does is it will just mirror it so it will flip. So currently it's pointing right. See nothing happens when I'm moving it on the right side. But as soon as I flip over 180, then we are now pointing in that left direction. So that is what left right does. And I'm just going to move between those two so you can see what happens there. The last option is do not rotate at all. So you'll see that when I rotate here, it doesn't affect Modi at all. So that's exactly what this does in the code. It just sets those three options through the box. The last three blocks in the motion category are nice and simple. They are reporter blocks and they just tell you the current position. They report back what the current position is of that value. So the current X, the current Y and the current direction. They're pretty useful. You can also flick on these flags for the reporter blocks. So what that does is when you're trying to debug, you can get the values of the sprite on the screen here and it is printed up in the top corner. The last thing I want to mention is sometimes you might get into your scratch project and you do not see any motion blocks. They're missing, you might say. That might be because you're currently in your backdrops and you'll see here that stage selected no motion blocks. So if you ever see that, that's probably why you're not seeing any motion blocks. You're currently in the stage and not on your sprites. It's time for scratchy question and I want to know are you someone who prefers to use direction and steps from coding your projects or do you prefer using the X and Y blocks? Drop your answer in the comment section below. Hey, thanks for checking out this scratch motion blocks tutorial. Like, subscribe, ring that bell if you're around here and have a scout of some of the other content on your screen right now. Hey, if you want to show your support for Surfing Scratcher, check out my Patreon page or go sus out some of these funky teas, links below in the description. But until then, I'm off to go find a wave. I'll catch you in the next one.


So, welcome Michael Todd, Professor Michael Todd. We are very happy that we can talk to you here just before the final conference of the cost action T14 or 2 on quantifying the value of structural health monitoring. Maybe I start. Can you outline your activities and the action and how you somehow came into this action? Yes, I appreciate the opportunity to share with you my interactions with you. I suppose my main action has been deliberately collaborative over the last two years through knowing you, Sebastian, through we met through the structural health monitoring conference network. As a consequence, I was able to attend your cost action summer workshop or academy this past summer in 2018 and deliver a lecture on how my research area in linking structural health monitoring to decision costs and in a framework of Bayesian inference was related to some of the main themes of your cost action. And as a consequence of that interaction, we've grown that interaction. Our activity has substantially increased, I think, from that starting point of identifying some common themes in where we're working on and that several of the groups on the cost action are working on. So I can certainly talk more about those as asked, but that's so far has been our primary initial activity. And Mikey, of course, you knew the topic of the action before starting this collaboration, but is there something new that you have learned about the topic or about the structure of the project, something that maybe you don't have in the United States and we have in the construction? I don't know. Yes. I think what I have learned is just how rigorously in terms of a framework, the action has developed a mechanism for quantifying the value of SHM. I have always thought, and I've even written, that the number one reason why structural health monitoring isn't done broadly in the entire world already because many of the technical developments that lead to the kinds of decisions we need to make have already been figured out. But the reason it's not been developed is that linking it to the business case and linking it to the operations case of why you'd want to invest and maintain a structural health monitoring network for a given application has never really been addressed. And industry has tried in limited ways in the U.S. and Europe, I'm sure, as well to do this. But this is the first time I've ever seen a concerted academic industry effort to sort out a framework that is broadly applicable, it can be used by anyone and adapted to anyone within this context of decision theory, which is a well-known but not so well-known engineering framework for making cost-effective decisions. So I've learned a tremendous amount about that particular central aspect, and I suspect that if this cost action launches into new phases of industry collaboration that it really has a good chance of becoming the default adopted framework. Okay, thank you very much for these points. This is very well-defined also with our thinking and our motivation and intentions when we started. And towards the network, we have quite a large network built in Europe, and we had a chance within this project to spread out a little to especially U.S. And we are very happy that you are one of the management committee observers that did this network. We have been building up also influenced your network. Yes, well, it has very clearly influenced my network. As you well know, we have been able to integrate our common networks. We put together special sessions with both of you in probably what would be considered the world's premier health monitoring conference, truly an international conference. So we are trying to make this topic a keynote address for this important conference. And I think that by itself will continue to amplify the network as people realize what's being done and will sort of bring collaborators who are contributing to different aspects of this into the network. So it certainly influenced my network personally, obviously, through working with both of you in different ways and having the opportunity to have you, Sebastian, visit us for a period of time that I think truly influenced some of my students' research work and helped look at how some synergistic ways in science and engineering that we were thinking about the problem are absolutely very consistent with your framework that you've been developing. And I think that's all part of building the network as we realize we're commonly approaching the problem. Another point that you partially touched already, but maybe you can say something more, what do you think has been or will be the impact of the action for industry and for society as well? And how it can be maybe increased in the United States as far as you know? Yeah, that's a good question. So I definitely reiterate that what I appreciate about the framework is its generality and the way it can be adopted or adapted for a particular application and a particular business model that an industry adopter might have. The framework has these capabilities and so that can really influence business if they don't feel like they have to make tremendous change to how they do their business now to actually assess whether to invest in structural health monitoring if they can just adopt this framework fit it to their controls and move on to make those assessments. Now, I think one of the unfortunate things is that while there are certainly large scale collaborative efforts that might rival cost actions in America, there are none to my knowledge in this area. And it would be certainly for the future of cost, it would be very beneficial if there's a way that the EU and the funding sources that support this action could collaborate with American funding sources to come up with a joint program so that we can really tap into the full network and get American industry to buy into this. I think American industry, one slight challenge that it has, very generally speaking of course there are always exceptions, but one challenge American industry has compared to my understanding of many European industries is their shorter time horizon upon which they expect results, less interested in investing in medium term R&D. So in some sense this cost action has already done the R&D and I think American industry could be poised in the next phase to support token projects where where we the researchers help them implement this framework into their business model. We just need the right mechanism between I don't know if it's EU and American science and engineering funding agencies to figure out how to talk the right language to to support. Okay, thank you very much for these points. This answers a large part of our questions already and of course we are thinking especially now about future ways of continuing this effort, but not just continuing basically spreading out on different levels and across Europe, US and also towards the East and the Southeast China and Australia. So in this sense we thank you very much for the interview. We are extremely happy that you joined this action that we could talk to you and that we can keep in touch and we very keep in touch. We appreciate that. It has truly been an influential personal and professional interaction. I congratulate you on this action and I look forward to hearing how the final conference turns out and how I can help you contribute to whatever the next phase seems to be for the action. Thank you Mike.