Can you see all things? Oh, yeah. Well, hello friends and welcome back to my channel. Today we're gonna be doing a wild collab sale haul. I just got my last order of stickers in yesterday, so I wanted to share all of the things. I have been collecting them and putting them in this cute little basket I got from Target a while back. The wild collab sale is a sale that is kind of ran by Wild for Planners, or Planners Gone Wild if you're on Facebook. I'll leave the links down below. And it's like a long weekend. I think it was like four days, three days, four days, something like that. And they all used the same coupon code. And every shop had different discounts or freebies or something like that. So it was a really great time for me to check out some shops I've never shopped at, also sprinkle in some of my favorites, and just try something new. So anyway, let's get into the haul. So the first thing I want to talk about is this cute little, it's like a washi cart. It looks very similar to like any of those Planner carts you've seen out there. I have an IKEA Raskog cart that looks really similar. It is super cool and I love it so much. I've been eyeing it for a while, but they participated in the Go Wild sale. And I was like, I need to get myself a white one. So anyways, I believe that the company is called a treasured home or a treasured home for you. I'm going to link all of the shops I talk about down below. So I'm really excited about this. Plus, I'll go into my next, this is the only thing I got from that company. But the next thing I got was simply gilded washi. So I got this set of like the little starburst. No, they're not starbursts, what are they called? I can't remember now, whatever. These ones. And you can stick your washi tapes right in them and they like fit perfectly. And then you can, you know, put them on the second tier and stuff too. I don't know, I just love it. I think it's really cool. And then I got two different, these are simple lines. This one's a rain, like a pastelli rainbow one that I think was in the like gummy bear collection. And then this one is a like purple to blue with a silver foil line. So I just think those are so cute. So anyway, I am actually going to be leaving this on my desk and then, you know, putting pretty washi and different fun little things in it. And I'm not like huge on desk clutter, but I don't know. This is pretty darn amazing, I think. So let's put this off to the side and talk about the next shop. All right, so up next is Once More with Love. They are a shop that I have frequented. So they're not really new to me, but there are a couple of new to me things in my basket. So first off, there's this cute little sampler that I got. So I'm really excited to use this. This has a bunch of the like go wild stuff. So go wild is very known for their like purple. So there's like a little purple heart. There's a little guy that says let's go wild. And then the you can sit with us and then a little rainbow llama. And then it says like ordered from and then shipped received. So I think that's really cool. There are these cute little bells, which I think are really fun. It's called mini bell. This one here is called the upside down. So it is all of the like stranger things, people and things. This one here is called all banged up and just, you know, all banged up. This one is Tea Time. I am a huge fan of tea. I am not a coffee drinker. It just does not agree with me. I mean, I love the smell of it, but I can't drink it. So I got that one. This one is called meal prep. I think I already have this one, but I'm running low. And then this one is a best friends slash sisters. So it's just the little munchkins hanging out and doing stuff together. I absolutely love their favorites. I think their favorites are awesome. It's like a great little sampler to always get. So this is the one year anniversary of favorites. This one I thought was very fitting and it's just a little munchkin. It says hang in there. So sometimes you need to just hang in there. This one here is some little military people. It's just this camo uniform. I thought that'd be great for putting in my planner and letting me know when my brother has drill weekends. He actually is living in Iowa, but he is part of the Minnesota National Guard. So the possibility of him, you know, visiting or staying over or whatever, just to know. And then this one is a zombie 2.0 because don't we always, you know, kind of feel like a zombie some days? And then this one I thought was really cute and it's dog walking. Doyle doesn't do this anymore where he like runs, but he did. He did do that at one point. So that is all of the beautiful things I got from Once More With Love. Up next, we have Wonton and a Million. And I've had these for a little while, so I've kind of used some of them. You'll see that in some of the other ones. So these are the steam team lunch boxes. I have been trying to bring my lunch every day to the office and it's been working pretty well, but it's just like a nice little indicator in my planner to say, you know, you got to bring your lunch, dang it. And then this one is a photo is worth a thousand dumplings. So I thought these were really, really cute for like filming or vlogging or, I don't know, just just taking pictures, I guess. And then this is music to my ears, which that'd be cute for like a concert or anything like that. Also, this is rock and egg roll. So again, like a concert or outing or something like that. This one computer nerd, I believe I already have. But, you know, yeah, I always need more computer nerds. And then this is a social media one and it's just as let's be social. My favorite is the little Etsy person with the cart because, isn't that the truth? I already have this one, but I think I have like two left. And it just says Bun Year Older, very cute. And then this one I got for New York, New York. You're going to see that I have some travel themed things. And I'm possibly doing a little traveling in the next year, year and a half, something like that. But nothing is set in stone yet. So this is all about New York and then I have some flights. I've actually got two of them or no, I got three of them. Look at that. Three flights. Cool. And then I got some little gas people and it just says filler up. I got two of those. Yeah. And then this is a little cruise one. It just says Bon Voyage, very cute. And then this one says Bunderlust and it has all the planes and, you know, vacationy travel. I got two of those. This one is Planner Nerd, which I thought was really cute for planner meetups or just planning in general. And then I got some shaving ones. It says don't forget to shave. I got some sick ones. I actually got three sick ones because if you guys follow me on Instagram, which you should, the link is below.  So that is getting handled. And up next, we have one of my old favorites, Adriana Piper. This was one of the first shops I ever ordered from on Etsy when I first started planning and it's just been a while since I've purchased anything. So she had participated in the sale. So I was like, oh, heck, yes, I need to stock up on a few things. And plus rediscover some stickers I've never had before. I don't I don't know if I got any. Oh, I did get one sticker sheet that I have had before. Everything else I think is yep. Everything else is brand new. So anyway, these little beds saying Namaste in bed are super cute. Again, I've already used one of them. And I love these because I think it's easy enough to like it was easy enough for me because I didn't use the Namaste in bed. I just wanted the bed. It was easy enough for me to just like trim it out, which I think was really nice. So I like the versatility of that for sure. I got these cute little brownie stickers. I was a Girl Scout and I actually just donated my Girl Scout uniforms. So I used a couple of these the day I did that, which I think are really cute.  This is drill weekend again for my brother. And then this, I thought was super cute. This is all like Girl Scout cookies. So it's like a little cookie booth, which I think are awesome because I love me some Girl Scout cookies. Oh, sorry, it's like a little out of frame. This one I've actually had before and I love I have like a black sedan. So I think this is like perfect for me. So anyway, I wanted to stock up on these because I think I only have like maybe two more stickers left on this sheet. Here is another one that is a like cookie Girl Scout. These are like the juniors. The other ones were brownies. So yeah, and then I also got these. These are little apartment buildings. So if I'm like visiting a friend in an apartment or, you know, you could even use this for like hotels and stuff, too, because they kind of look like hotels. So anyway, that is all of the goodies I got from Age Rihanna Piper. And then I got one thing from Planner Bunny Press.  These are the only things I got. I am planning to use these on a weekly basis come 2020.  So I just thought these are really cute and you can actually like fold them over so then you have to like flip them up to see what's inside. So yeah, I just stocked up on these. I had never purchased from her shop before, so it was really cool to look around. But I absolutely fell in love with these and I'm really excited to use them next year. And then we come to Christiane Designs, which is a tried and true favorite. She is one of my favorite people out there in the Planner world. And I placed an order and this is my first order. I ended up placing a second order because she was super sneaky and put a bunch of brand new stuff on her site after this order was placed. So we'll talk about the next order in just a moment. So I believe it was the first, I don't know, how many orders. I think it might have been a hundred or 200 or something like that. That placed an order from her shop, got this simply gilded bo washi. It's really, really cute.  So yeah, but it's so cute. So I'm going to put that in this little guy right now. See, look how cute that looks. All right. And all of the Christiane Designs orders that were placed during the sale got this little freebie sheet, which I think is awesome. So it's got some full boxes and then some sayings and then some more like functional things and deco and I just love it all. You will see that I will I've used a few of these stickers already, but that's OK. There's they're kind of a lot of order. So the first thing is these little flags. I have been looking for flags for a while and like I like to use these. And sometimes you have even like a turn them on their sides like this. Like I just want to write a time. I'm clearly an hourly planner anyways, but sometimes I like to put a time or checkmark or something like that. So these are going to be great for that. I also got these in both color ways. So I got the little pencils, which I thought were awesome. I got a lot of stuff in like several color ways. I also got these laundry stickers. I got the bold in that color way. And then I also got the pastel because I'm like that. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm like such a professional today. And then I also got the movie marquees and then I already used one. So yeah, I got the little sleep ins in both color ways. I've already used one of those. And then I got oh, I used one of those already. I got the money like the dollar bills in two color ways as well as the classic green. So those are all the things I got in my first order. And then let's move on to the second order. So here's my second order. I can't remember if this was on the site before I when I placed my previous order, but I'm not sure. Chrissy and Designs does do washi tape once in a while. But I thought that this kind of like diagonal, you know, super skinny stripe to small stripe was really pretty. And I'm loving it. So I'm sure I'll be using this at some point. Again, I'm going to put this over in my little washi cart. Again, I have another one of these same sheets. Super cute. OK, so here is I think this is all new stuff. Yes, this is all new stuff. So these are these really cute boxes and I think it might be a little bit difficult to see with some of the colors, but they have little like dotted lines on them so you can, you know, write whatever you want. But just very simple boxes. I just I just love it. So I got it in the bold. You'll see this as another theme. I got it in the bold and I got it in the pastel.  So I ended up getting it in the bold colorway and the pastel colorway. OK, and then there were some others. So here's a bold colorway of a monochromatic and then the pastel colorway of the monochromatic and then these I thought were amazing. This is some Cindy lettering and it's just real life, not today.  So like this, this describes my life a lot. And I'm sure it describes a lot of your lives a lot, too. So anyway, I am excited about these as well. So put those over to the side and these are all from Blue Scooter Press. I don't know if I've ever placed an order with her shop. I feel like I have, but I can't remember. But I know that this company has always donated like a little bit of swag to the swag bags from Go Wild. So I knew about the shop. But again, I cannot remember if I've ever placed an order. But I found a lot of really cute things. Oh, let me zoom you guys in just a little bit here. I saw these and actually my friend, Ryan, from A Man with the Plans, we were like messaging each other the whole weekend of the sale. And he is a neutral planner. So she has these hand-drawn Aaron Condren inspired planners and this is the kaleidoscope pattern. And I am a colorful person and he is a neutral person. So he's like, oh my gosh, did you see those? I'm going to get the neutral ones. I'm like, oh, I'm going to need the colorful ones. So I thought those would be really great for either planner meetups or just to, you know, designate planning or a planner type video or something like that. So very, very cute. And then here's some more travel things. I do have some Boston themed travel. I thought was really cute. I've got some and then two New York themed travel. They're very, very similar. But I just thought they were so cute. So I clearly needed both, right? And then these are all from Peanut Butter Taco. I have ordered from her shop before, but it's been a long time. Like, I want to say years. So it's kind of a new to me shop because all of these things are new to me. So anyway, I did get some planner meetups with some little cute planners on them. This meal prep, again, I've already used it. I have no self-control here, guys. This little cutting board and knife. I thought was awesome. This I actually used the other day. I'm just like little fuckets. So like, yes, I totally need that in my life. And then these are another one I've used already. It's just a little train that says Hot Mess Express. So I'm sure we can all relate to that a little bit. And then these guys are from my little Chickadee Co. I've never purchased from their shop before, but I absolutely loved a whole bunch of stuff from there. So I just I love discovering new shops.   So like Tropical Storm, Blizzard, Tornado, Heatwave, Hurricane, all that kind of stuff. Oh, I got a couple of these. I forgot I've got a couple of them. I got a little like couple little like smartphone icons, some paint buckets, which I thought were awesome. These pet meds, I love them. They're so cool. These, I think I'm going to be using a lot coming up next year. But these are the like once in a while house things.  So I think that's great for like home improvement stuff. This Taco Tuesday.   In the next place I got stuff from, I think I've purchased from like some of the big box craft stores before, but I've never purchased anything online. And that is Paper House. I believe that they were one of the sponsors. They were like some of their stuff was like in the swag bag. I think they had a table Echo Wild this past year. So anyway, I got this. It's an indoor outdoor magnet. This is US Army. My brother's in the Army. So I thought this would be really cool for like my fridge or something. And then I got these little mugs, which I thought were super cute. Again, you might be able to find this stuff at Michaels or Joann's or Hobby Lobby. I'm not really sure exactly where they're located or not where they're located. What stores they're in, but I know I've seen them out. And then these like some just international flags, which I think is kind of awesome.  It's two sheets. Oh, these are even scratch and sniff. Sweet. I got these cute Halloween themed ones and some of them are kind of foily. It might be a little hard to see, but it's on the back as well. I think it's really cute. And then these ones I thought were really awesome. These are some like congratulations, graduate stickers. I don't know, just thought they were really fun. Like a lot of cute stuff. And then since my brother's in the military, I got these enamel seals, which I thought were really cool. It's just United States Army. I got some road trip ones. So I got these. I thought these were really cute. And then I got some stuff that's like Washington DC themed. And then this big thing is also Washington DC themed. And I believe that these are all like clear. Yeah, like these are all like clear stickers. So, yeah, just, you know, some of them are bigger and some of them are smaller. I think these would be awesome for some scrapbooking and things like that. But definitely, you know, some of these could be used in like a regular planner as well, just kind of, you know, depends. So I just thought this was really cute. So those are all of the goodies that I got from Paper House Productions. All right, we have come to the last shop. Plantarotopia. I love plantarotopia so, so much. I have been ordering from their shop for a couple of years now. And I don't know, I'm just, it just speaks to me. You know how certain shops just speak to you? This one speaks to me. So I actually didn't order this, but this was actually in my order. And it says no spend. So, of course, I love that, right? And then I have these little like text message bubbles, which I think were kind of awesome. I'm like, I need those because I do every once in a while. Put in my planner like, you know, to text somebody. But I'm like, I don't really have a good icon for that. So I'm like, this will be perfect. And then we have some large TVs, which I think is awesome because then you can actually write in either a show or a movie or something that you're watching. And then we've got some bright mini planners. And then I think I had some other. I actually have this sheet already, but I am running really low. Like, it looks really sad. There's like a couple of things left on it. And that's it. I want to say that in another order previous to this, I got the pastel planner minis, just FYI. And then I got these, which I think are awesome because I use them all the time. Like the reschedules and cancels, like the little things. You can just put it over it and then, oh, love me a Clarisonic. So these are like the little Clarisonic minis. And then this colorful notebook paper is totally my jam. I actually got two sheets of it, but one of them is already like in my planner stash because I've been using it so much. Also, another plans change things like a canceled postponed and rescheduled. So love those. And then I got these cool little pastel luggage minis. I believe I have this already in the bold, but I saw the pastels were available. So I'm like, clearly I need that. And then this is the Movie Night 4, it says. And clearly I've already used a couple of them, but I love these little movie marquees and, you know, I actually use these a lot for like Netflix and stuff. Just kind of fun. So those are all of the goodies that I got from Planner Topia. All right. So these are all of the things that I got in the Go Wild collab sale. I hope you guys enjoyed the video. Again, all of the shops, whoa, all of these shops that I purchased at, I will link down below for you guys. Unfortunately, the sale is not going on any longer. However, I will put the information for Planners Gone Wild and Wild for Planners. It's the same thing. One's a Facebook group, one's an Instagram and you can make sure to follow along with them and hopefully they'll have this sale next year as well. And I hope that the same shops participate as well as tons of other shops. And there are there were a ton of shops that actually participated. This is just a small handful of them. So there's really something for everyone.  And you will be seeing lots of these things go in my Planner very, very soon. Again, thank you guys so much for watching. Make sure to give it a thumbs up. Feel free to subscribe and yeah, check the links down below and I will see y'all in the next video. Bye guys.


Hi, my name is Gloria Dennett. I am a technical representative and team leader for Sargent Manufacturing, handling primarily exit device hardware. I've been at Sargent now for about 22 years. I have held roles in customer service and tech service. So I am definitely a hardware nerd, specifically an exit device panic hardware nerd. The reason I know that I am a nerd is because everywhere I go I stop and I look at the exit devices that are on the door whether it be in the hotel, the casino, the school, the mall. Also when I'm watching TV shows I mean what else do you look at? Who's concentrating on the show when you have somebody pushing through a door? You want to see what panic devices on that door and I am proud to say that I've seen many. American Idol, NCIS, New Orleans, Blue Bloods, I can name a few but I see panic hardware everywhere and that's what makes me a nerd. So the day I began at Sargent hardware I had no idea what Sargent made. Passed by the building all the time and had no idea but I quickly became a nerd once I became a customer service rep and went through the catalog and saw the importance of all the things that we do here. I was just really amazed that Sargent just did not make keys. So I was a nerd the day I started. The nerdiest thing that I've ever done I would say I've done a few but one of the nerdiest things that I've ever done is my daughter was running track and she was at a field house at a track meet at a local school and she called me and she said mom this door doesn't have Sargent hardware. So rewind not only did I become a nerd for Sargent hardware but my family too because everywhere we went I made them stop and look to see if the panic was ours. So when she called me that day and told me that there was no hardware from Sargent on that particular opening I was beside myself. So what did I do? I called our local DSS rep and asked them why and they told me and they made sure the next day that was fixed. If you're not a door hardware nerd I recommend that you become one very quickly. There's no better way to be. It's all about life safety, safety for our families, safety for our children, safety for the world. I mean honestly you go into the schools or you swipe a card to get into a campus dorm. There's nothing better than to know that you are safe because of the Osso Boy door hardware. Thank you.


The visits are designed to address two challenges faced by students. The first challenge is that students find it really hard to engage with physics as a subject. The second challenge is that they find it really hard to associate with physics careers. So these visits are actually designed to engage them with physics. What we're seeing here is a human hair under the king's microscope. And then they get to meet fantastic guys like Lloyd and Mike, who actually are physicists who are really normal so they can start to associate themselves with careers that are available to them. What can you see on the screen? No, no, but if that's sat like now, sat now. Now look at the other side of the screen. Take a look from this angle. Oh my God! Yeah? Okay. The Institute of Physics with Stimulating Physics have worked with AIM Hire to actually select the schools in partnership. So some of the schools that we're working with, the children there will not have a family history of graduate careers. So what we're trying to do is to actually work with schools, work with businesses, to actually show children what their choices really are. And in 1992, we produced the viewcam, which I've still got. One of the relics. That was the viewcam. It was the best product in its days. And as a result of that product, because it was a very popular product, we were even the sponsors of Manchester United. For a country to develop, you need scientific advances, be it in medicine or in electronics. So you need a constant flow of scientists, a constant flow of engineers. And this is the reason why these visits, I think, are very, very important, because we need to encourage the young people to take up these careers. Do you have people who decide, like, who come up with the ideas to make the new things? It's one of our roles as scientists to come up with the technology. And then there are people who would say, this thing will never make money, or it will make money. So those are the people that have the final say. I have a passion for science, and I would want more people to get involved. So I thought by having, by getting involved and showing the students what they can do with their degrees, that was my little contribution. What we're seeing here is a human hair under the Keans microscope. The kids are usually impressed when we do such demonstrations. It's quite nice to be able to see the relative size of a transistor compared to a human hair. Students sometimes do come with misconceptions. They imagine to walk around a laboratory like this and see the stereotypical boffin-type scientist. Felly old people in white coats. It's more advanced than what I expected. There's more technology. I thought it wouldn't be as advanced as that. I didn't think we were that good, like the GPS. I saw that was quite good. Some of the stuff was what I expected, like the lab coats and stuff. Lots of the stuff was, like, new and different. Like, all the equipment and stuff. I was like, lots of money going into it. I believe that science is exciting, and I believe it's life-changing. But I know that most of the children who come through that door come through the door actually disagreeing with me. But I know a lot of them go back out through the door agreeing with me. So that's the best bit for me. And they've got to see some really expensive machinery. They've seen people dressed up in green suits. They've seen things that the cameras aren't allowed to see. They've seen technology that no one's going to see for five years. And actually, they've also got to see what they could be doing themselves in the future. It's not bad for morning's work. That was the hands-on. You got to see a load. It just makes it more interesting and makes you want to do more. So, if there was more trips like this in the future, it would be quite good. Because it just gets you more enthusiastic about physics.


The Narcissus Darkest Manipulation Tactic The darkest manipulation tactic that narcissists use is actually something that people do naturally and it's something that's very effective. It can make them chase after you. It can make them want to gain your attention. It can make them recognize your worth. But when people naturally do this it may not be something that they're aware of or if they are aware of it they're not doing it with the intention to harm you or cause you distress. When narcissists do it they are exploiting you. They are making full use of you and deriving benefit from you. They are making use of the situation in a way that will be considered unfair and underhand. So there is a difference because they're using you unfairly for their own advantage. They're not taking responsibility for their own emotions. They're not taking responsibility for what they're doing to you because they just don't care. They don't want the same things as we do. They don't really want a relationship with you. They're not seeking a partner. They're not seeking someone to build with. They're seeking power and control. They're seeking attention. They're not seeking love. But when they target you it feels good to them and that is why they do it. It brings them excitement. They see it as though you're the solution to their problems as though you're going to save them. But with time it begins to fade away because they realize you're not perfect. They realize you're human. So they begin to criticize you but they will still choose to stay with you even though they don't really want you because there are benefits that come along with that they're getting something out of it but they don't want to be intimate with you because they don't want to be vulnerable so instead they will avoid you they will push you away and they don't consider how it affects you because they lack empathy instead they become very bitter and resentful towards you as you're given them more and more of your time, energy and money until you finally give up you stop trying you accept that you can't make them happy and when that happens they fear losing your attention because it bruises their ego it makes them feel unimportant it makes them feel like you don't want them so to regain their power and control over you they will pull you back in they may return to the love bombing phase they may give you fake intimacy or they will use intimidation and threats they will shame you because then it pulls you back in which makes them feel important again but once they've pulled you in they've got to push you away again because they don't want intimacy they don't want to be vulnerable they fear rejection because it puts them in a position where they lack control but it creates an addiction for you because you're waiting for the next dose you're waiting for the next high it creates a dependency they leave and then they come back they get what they want and then they're gone again without taking any responsibility for what they're doing to you because they don't care about what you want they don't care about how you feel they're just doing whatever makes them feel good which can change from moment to moment and they won't even tell you how they feel or what they need and they won't ask you how you feel or what you need because they can't deal with vulnerability this is the narcissist's darkest manipulation tactic this is their push-pull game they pull you in and then they push you away and then the moment they pull you back in they push you away again thank you for watching I hope this video resonates with you please like, comment, share and subscribe if you would like to donate my PayPal link is in the video description coached inquiries you can email me at coachingatnarksurvivor.co.uk thank you for watching and I'll talk to you soon


NEON's mobile deployment platforms, or MDPs, are flexible tools with which the community can adapt NEON to their needs. MDPs bring standardized, scalable NEON measurement systems to planned or ongoing research projects, experiments, or other existing network sites. MDPs are self-contained research units built on a trailer platform that can be transported to road-accessible remote locations. These MDP systems are designed to gather ecological data about the atmosphere, freshwater, and soil. They allow researchers to leverage the NEON network and use the same standardized and validated instrument systems from across the observatory for their own research. MDPs are a NEON-assignable asset that are requestable by individual researchers, academic institutions, government agencies, research organizations, and the private sector. Standard configurations include a trailer-mounted instrument hut, a Roan 25G tower up to 100 feet tall, and a suite of standardized NEON terrestrial and aquatic instrumentation. The MDP systems also have the expandable capability to accommodate additional researcher-provided instrumentation. Sensors on the MDP can collect eddy covariance and trace gas measurements, solar radiation, and standard environmental measurements such as air temperature, wind speed and direction, precipitation, atmospheric pressure, and relative humidity. These data can be combined with the MDP soil modules for measurements of soil CO2 flux, moisture and temperature, and soil heat flux. A freshwater aquatics module is also available for researchers. SONs can be strategically placed in streams and rivers to capture data, including conductivity, pH, dissolved oxygen, and chlorophyll. Nitrate levels, PAR, water grab samples, and water levels can also be collected using this MDP Aquatic Module. The core of the MDP platform is housed in a secure instrument hut that connects to utility power, but can also be powered for short periods with a trailer-mounted propane generator system that keeps the data collection going while off-grid. System communications and data uploads are possible via direct wired or wireless network connections. The data are stored locally within the instrument hut on NEON's data acquisition system and also pushed to NEON's data center for storage and processing using NEON's standard processing pipeline and QAQC algorithms. The MDP can be monitored in real time for sensor data quality and validity to ensure the smooth collection of information. NEON technicians can also be alerted about any maintenance or repair issues. Researchers can easily download MDP data or use NEON's processing algorithms so that the data collected at the MDP site is comparable with NEON terrestrial and aquatic field sites across the U.S. Through NEON's assignable assets program, researchers can easily request an MDP in support of their own research programs. These requests undergo a feasibility evaluation by NEON personnel and are operated on a cost-recoverable basis. Requestors are responsible for obtaining permissions, permits and funding for deployment which is often secured through grants administered by the National Science Foundation and other funding agencies. Visit neonscience.org to learn more.


Please a big warm welcome for Klaus Nieman. Thank you very much. So good morning, and welcome to my presentation on the Enterprise Architecture Digital Readiness Framework, which we developed over the last two years. I would like to share some insights, some ideas, some findings from studies we did based on that framework. First, let me show how we got there, where we are right now. I had the opportunity to guide a major joint venture project in 2016. This was set up by nine companies from Germany and Switzerland. And the working title for this project was Agile EA. But all of these enterprises had very extensive experience with Enterprise Architecture. So they had like 10, 15, 20 years practice within Enterprise Architecture. And all of them were facing the challenge of aligning Enterprise Architecture with digital transformation. So this project gave us the chance to derive several case studies from the project. And based on these results, we developed in 2017, we developed the Enterprise Architecture Readiness Framework, which we used to perform a study on digital fitness of EA organizations. We pre-tested the framework with six guided interviews and then put it online. Now it's like three, four months, it's online. And we have about 100 data sets gathered through that period of time and evaluated that results. And I would like to share some of those results with you. We did some data analysis on that. We did some deep dives with respect to specific findings. We tried to derive some guidelines and recommendations from the study in order to improve digital readiness of EA organizations. So first step will be to look a little bit on those case studies, three major findings. The acronym VUCA, the Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity best describes what is happening around Enterprise Architecture right now from one of our case studies. Or more than one of our case studies, we learned that. And we feel that Enterprise Architecture is somehow asked to find answers to these challenges and should find a way to replace this VUCA world by the so-called VUCA antipodes, which are typically called vision understanding, clarity, and agility. This overall situation imposes very much of impacts to the Enterprise Architecture practice in particular on the IT department as well. So this was more or less one of the first findings from the case study. A second finding was that we have new customers and channels, we have new requirements that we need to address within Enterprise Architecture practice. There are some of the well-known customers, like the plan-build-run people within the IT department. And there are also new customers in the IT department, like, for example, scrum masters or innovation managers. And there are some well-known customers in the business department as well. And we find some new customers or potential customers in the business area, like the chief digital officer or one of my favorite quotes that be gathered from that, a quote from a CEO who said, whenever they show up, the Enterprise Architects, it gets expensive and longstanding.  Something like that. The third finding from those case studies is about the role of architecture in the world where IT gets more and more a commodity. And IT spendings are not only decided upon within the IT department, but in business as well. So the classical IT budget, 70% IT operations, 30% for adaptive and corrective maintenance and development is now amended by IT spendings, which are not decided within the IT department but in business departments. And they typically don't ask enterprise architecture about their investments. They simply do it. And so enterprise architecture has to find a way to play a role within this situation. So the major findings, three major findings from the case studies we did in 2016, speed innovation capacity are challenges for architecture in a VUCA world. New customers and channels produce new requirements. And the third finding, whenever this thing will work, a large portion of the future IT landscape is shaped by non-IT units. Architecture needs to play a part in that. So based on those findings and several other findings that we had within those case studies and the project, we started out in 2017 to develop the framework to evaluate digital readiness of EA organizations. The framework consists of 11 influencing factors. We differentiate on extrinsic factors, which are given and partially influenceable, where we have the relevance of digitalization within the enterprise. We have the EA mandate, and we have the EA customers and the markets we are focusing on. By the way, in this presentation, we think about enterprise architecture more or less in terms of a profit center, looking at the rest of the enterprise and looking at customers, which we deliver services for. Then we have a second element, which we call acceptance factors, where we have market channels, and we have the EA value proposition. And we have a third category of factors, the intrinsic factors, which are the foundation for digital readiness, and they must be shaped under EA's responsibility. In this part, we find services, which we use to structure our methods and tools, the information we are managing, and the organization that we set up to provide those services. We also have communication skills and feedback culture within this sector, and we have the self-conception of the enterprise architects in the organization. The overall framework was developed in terms of thinking writing a letter to the chief architect, like, dear chief architect, did you open new market channels in order to address new customer groups, such as business development, a chief digital officer, is your value proposition aligned to the requirements of the digital age, our communication skills, and feedback culture in place, are your EA services.  And finally, does the self-conception of your architects reflect the needs of digitalization? So based on that, we structured a questionnaire around those 11 factors. We set up 50 questions with five options each. And as I mentioned before, right now, we have like 100 data sets derived from the online questionnaire, from guided interviews, and from some sessions that we were setting up directly, so-called, ask me anything sessions. So some of the results at a glance, as you can see from this chart, the market channels and the customers in the markets seem to be pretty good aligned with the needs of the digital age. But on the other hand, communication skills, and feedback culture, and services seem to be still under development in terms of digital transformation. Let's look at that from a little different perspective. If you look at the relevance of digitalization within those enterprises, then we found that all of the enterprises we asked told us that they have a very high relevance of digitalization. So this doesn't distinguish between all these enterprises. So we focused on the other 11 factors on our search for optimization potentials within those factors. The customers and markets and the market channels seem to be very high aligned with the requirements of the digital age. The EA mandate, so that's what we get from the outside, from others. Oops. Sorry. This is, here we are. So the mandate seemed to have a high alignment with digital requirements. Methods, tools, information, and self-conception do have a medium alignment to requirements from digitalization. The EA value proposition and the organization of the Enterprise Architecture Department itself seem to be low. And the communication skills and the feedback culture as well as the services seem to be very low in terms of requirements of digitalization. So whenever I talk about we, it means the majority of those 100 enterprises we surveyed within the study. And I would like to show some exemplary questions that we asked aligned with the results we found on those questions. The first of this question was, do we have the mandate to enable and drive digitalization? Second question was, do we address the right customers to the right extent? We used this so-called transformation driver portfolio, which we developed in our practice, to analyze these areas. The transformation driver portfolio expands over operations and strategy and IT and business. So we identified four domains where we typically find transformation drivers and practice areas for the Enterprise Architecture, which are housekeeping demands from the IT landscape, demands, operational demands from the business, technical innovations, the need to innovate technology, and business model innovations. So in terms of this question, we asked those 100 companies whether they operate in all these four practice areas or they don't. The third question that we asked is, do we know our customer's job? We used the value proposition mapping from strategizer to analyze this question. On the right-hand side, you find typically the jobs of your customers, their pains and their gains. On the left-hand side, you find the products and services that you as an Enterprise architect offer and the gain creators and pain relievers that are defined by the Enterprise Architecture practice in order to help the customers. The fourth question we asked was, do we understand the business? We used our business architecture structure to analyze this question. We have a three-layer business architecture model with business motivation, where you typically find mission and vision and goals and strategy and drivers and things like that. We have the business model, where we find our value proposition, where we find our products, our markets, our channels, our partnerships. And we have the business operation layer, where we typically find capabilities, processes, functions, information, and organization, which the Enterprise typically sets up to drive the business model and to support the business motivation. The fifth question that we asked was, do we provide help and initial acceleration for digitalization projects in order to analyze this question? We used our standards portfolio, which is a portfolio which is set up by three layers, business application and infrastructure standards. And we also have four columns, building blocks, patterns, methodologies, and directives. These are used to indicate the strengths of a standard, strengths, declines from left to right. So typically, building blocks are blocks that you can directly use, and they are pretty strong, defined, and directives, such as principles, are much more weak. The sixth question that we asked was, do we really acknowledge feedback? The answers that we got from these questions, do we have the mandate to enable and drive digitalization? So like 80% of all of those enterprises that we asked felt that they had the right mandate. The second question, do we address the right customers to the right extent? Remember this transformation driver portfolio? So based on that question, we found that around 80% of the enterprise architects, which answered our questionnaire, felt that they really address the right customers to the right extent. But do we know our customers' jobs? And related to this question, we found that 70% of our enterprise architects did not know all pains of our customers, or they didn't focus their services on the pains of their customers and the jobs of their customers. Do we understand the business? We found that around 60% of all the enterprise architecture practices we talked to do not have proficient knowledge about methodologies for business modeling or business motivation modeling. They know about methods for business operations modeling, but nothing about or not very much about business modeling and business motivation modeling. Fifth question, do we provide help and initial acceleration for digitalization projects? Oops, sorry. 40% of all the enterprises did not adjust their standards or their portfolio at all in relation to digitalization projects. And the sixth question, do we really acknowledge feedback? 60% of all the organizations do not evaluate feedback, or they only do it on occasion. So the major findings from the digital readiness study in on this slide, we do have the right mandate. We do address the right customers, but we do not know too much about our customers. We are not proficient enough to understand the business and facilitate business innovation. We do not provide sufficient help and initial acceleration for digitalization projects, and we do not really acknowledge feedback from our customers. That's what we found within the study. Some individual statements, just to put that into the right corner. There was an individual statement from a chief architect of a media and publishing group. New EA customer groups, such as business development, CDOs, business partners are not even addressed. Good methods and tools, but weak service definition. We need to put the power on the pavement. A true customer relationship in channels do not match a weak value proposition. There's more tinsel and glitter. And our mandate doesn't allow for experiments. We are not allowed to create new standards. And the last statement, we don't like to see architects around here. They don't talk business as much as we are required. That's a statement of a chief of a digital lab that we visited during the study. The guidelines and recommendations that we derived from that are more or less on four pages. How to put that into execution, adopt business architecture toolset, manage heuristics, set up architecture engineering, and align EA value proposition. Just a short look at those four recommendations. Our first idea on that was to adopt or set up a toolset for the early stages of new initiatives. We did that with something we called the MIPRO toolset. For the creation of new ideas, the development of new business models, the implementation and test of those business models before we go into normal operation, we adopted a set of proven and well-known methods from business creativity, business modeling, future sciences. We described those methods. We found some heuristics when to use those methods and how to use those methods and created a set of templates in order to adopt those methods. The second topic is manage heuristics. Architecture delivers heuristics based on proven solutions. One of the questions that we found very, very often during the study was how about governance when discussing the digital readiness. Who is going to take care of our standards if we go agile, for example? If you look at that process of standardization and using standards, then we typically answer the best thing is not to standardize and communicate about standards. We should not discard this standards portfolio, but we should think about the way how we communicate standards. So instead of communicating a standard whenever a customer approaches you and is looking for a solution, it's much better to communicate the solution aligned with the heuristics that originally led to the standard. A good standard portfolio will typically help us to find the right solution whenever you not only manage the standards, but also the heuristics which helped to define those standards. So whenever you communicate instead of standards, heuristics and solutions in the process of communicating with your customers, and whenever you will use your architecture repository to document those heuristics, not only the standards, then this whole process of communicating standards will be much easier. Architecture extends a proven engineering methodology for solution architecture development. It's a third action we are talking about. We are thinking about an iterative tool set to construct solution architectures based on heuristics. I have a vision for many years now. This is like having an engineering handbook, like civil engineers or mechanical engineers have where you find best practices and heuristics and things like that. And the solution architecture process should more or less be based on something like this engineering handbook. So if you look at solution architecture and if you ask yourself the question how good the solution architecture is supported in the community, there are only a few tool sets. There are only a few training sessions dedicated especially to solution architecture. But from our practice, we would say it's about 80% of the overall architecture work that is done within a specific enterprise, which is solution architecture. The rest might be strategic planning and enterprise architecture and standards management. But the major part of this architecture word is solution architecture. So I think it's much more worth the time of developing such an engineering handbook, although it's a vision. As you see, I do not agree with the famous quote of a firm former German chancellor who said the one who has visions should see the doctor. That is more or less not valid for this case. So an iterative process based on identifying requirements, using heuristic testing solution ideas, and developing solutions. This does not work. And the last step, align the value proposition. Architecture delivers a clear customer-specific value proposition aligned by continuous feedback. As you heard from a former slide, we used this value proposition canvas. I have an example here for the chief digital officer with the typical jobs of a chief digital officer, the pains and the gains that this chief digital officer typically suffers from, the pain relievers, the gain creators, and the products and services, which are typically offered by enterprise architects to define a value proposition in order to support the chief digital officer, which must be combined with the feedback process to realign this value proposition over the time. So we have four optimization potentials, knowledge about EA customers, proficiency in business architecture, sufficient help and initial acceleration for digitalization, and feedback, feedback culture. And we have those four approaches, which align with the optimization potentials. And to close this session with one statement, what we can learn from others, I think it's a real challenge to improve enterprise architecture and to align enterprise architecture management with those challenges from digital transformation. But as we can learn from others, speed, agility, flexibility on the one hand side, and stability, and safety on the other hand side, they can come together and they can be combined. And so can we do it in enterprise architecture from my understanding. So thank you very much for listening. Thank you very much, Klaus. If you take a seat, we do have a few questions have come in. First question, does your survey include government organizations who have a major driver as mandate requirements? Yeah, actually, there were some government organizations. And in fact, one of the organizations which had a very high degree of digital readiness was an IT service center for government organization. OK. Given what you've learned, the question just reads, so what's the future for EA teams? The future for EA teams, yeah. Actually, that's a working title that we are working on right now. The future for EA teams, as I mentioned during the presentation, there is this vision that I share with my colleagues for many years. This bridging the gap, how the open group calls it, like 20% in strategic architecture work and 80% in solution architecture work. The future of EA, I think, is more and more integrating those both ideas and getting an overall architecture practice within the enterprise and dedicating the whole thing to execution, which is most important. Enterprise architecture without having this lever into execution doesn't work at all. Why wouldn't you make standards easy to consume in a catalog? The IT for IT request to fulfill value stream, for example, addresses this requirement? Yeah, this is more or less a question of history. We developed that standard portfolio in 1998, so long before we talked about IT for IT. So there is something to maybe look at there to update. How mature do you consider the EA solution market to support the end-to-end EA activities for the digital enterprise? Excuse me. How mature do you consider the EA solution market to support end-to-end EA activities in the digital enterprise? Yeah, the EA solution market. I mean, there has happened many over the last couple of years. We still have many tools which are able to support both operational architecture and strategic architecture management, solution architecture as well as enterprise architecture. The tools which came up the last two, three years, they focus more or less from my understanding what I see on the strategic end of architecture management. So somehow it's more or less the other way around. The tools go in the direction which the practice should not follow. So I think it's better to think about tool environments here.  The readiness framework. Yeah, it's more or less, it's a questionnaire and we already implemented it on one of the tools that we use with our customers. So it's a potential to do that and use the questionnaire in that term. I know you referred to it being online as well. Yes, unfortunately it's German still because we focus on the German market, but we'll change that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.


What an honor, what a privilege to be in the Hungry Generation Church. From the moment your pastor met me at the airport and the paparazzi were there. Thank you, Johan. It took me to a delightful hotel and my room was right on the water. I wanted my wife to come. Her name is Esty. She's a Canadian third generation Ukrainian. But they had a huge 30,000 strong women's conference designed for life. And they had these really cool women speakers. And so she asked to go to that. And I thought, okay, you can go. I bless her. We're married 37 years and my second son is a captain in the Air Force. Not the Navy, but that's okay. He has a doctorate as well. He ministers to PTSD and my daughter's a teacher. My wife is a nurse now retired. I'm the only dummy in the family, really. But I minister with Ukrainians, so it's okay. I'm smart enough for them. Oh, this is good. I want to hear about that. My mom and my dad came from Ukraine. And those of you, how many kids of immigrants? Raise your hand. Dita immigrant. F-O-B. You know what F-O-B means? Fresh off the boat. I had a translate for my father in first grade. How embarrassing for a parent-teacher conference. Mrs.  You talk too much in class. And you're this and you're that. And I'm translating. My dad's smiling and nodding his head. So she caught on. She says, you're not translating what I'm saying.  My dad thought I was the best student in school. But my father was such a man of God. I don't know what your dad was like when my dad walked with God. He's a pastor of a Ukrainian assembly god church. And many times I would catch him praying in his office by the chair, praying for us. I have four sisters, two older and two younger. I'm the only boy in the family. We only had one bathroom. That was horrible. But my dad said to me when I was five that one day I would go to Ukraine and I would preach the gospel. I was called while my mother still carried me in the womb. And God has opened up an incredible ministry. But you know what I see today? I see in my spirit an incredible ministry birthed right here in tri-cities. And, you know, the Lord put a word on my heart for your church. There were two times that God sent a lot of fish to Peter and the disciples. The first time they weren't ready and their nets broke and Peter reacted wrongly. He said, depart from me, Lord. I'm a sinful man. So he put his failure, he put his humanness, he put his weaknesses as an excuse that God couldn't use them. But after three and a half years of walking with Christ, and this is not my message, just the word from God for you. After three and a half years with Christ, Jesus died and rose from the dead. Peter had another failure, okay? Because we will fail in our lives. We will sin in our lives, not intentionally. And he went fishing. That's all he knew to do. Well, that morning Jesus appears on a shore in John 21 and says, you have any fish? No. He says, throw them on the other side of the boat. The other time they had to go deeper. Now they're deep. So, what a silly thing to say. Like, the fish are not here, but they're here. Like, the length of the boat, the width of the boat. Okay. And they caught 153 large fish. And here's the point. And their nets were not broken. They could receive the fish. And secondly, Peter's reaction was so different. He looked and he says, it's the Lord. And he jumped in the water and he swam to Christ. You see, when you have failure, our human tendencies to swim or run away from God. Isn't that true? But that's the time you need to run to God. Because you're going to see the heart of God in this message. Let me start the message by asking a question. Who do you think is the example of the best father in the entire Bible, Old Testament and New Testament? From all the Bible stories, who do you think really epitomizes the heart of a father? Would it be Job who woke up every morning and prayed for his children? Would it be Abraham who gave his son to God and received him back in faith? Who would it be? Would it be any of the disciples, although we don't know much about their families? Would it be Apostle Paul as a surrogate father with Titus and Timothy and other young men, Luke? You know, actually, Jesus tells us who the best father in an earthly story. And you'll find it in Luke chapter 15. In Luke 15, and this is not my message yet. I'm just heading into the message, and I'll tell you when I'm starting. In Luke chapter 15, there are three stories. Three stories. And they all really speak about one thing, why Jesus ate with sinners. Because that's how the chapter begins. If he's such a prophet of God, why is he eating with sinners? Jesus, well, I'll tell you why. If you had a hundred sheep and went away, would you look for it? Well, yeah. And if you had ten silver coins and you lost one, would you seek for it? Yeah. Well, why? What do you mean why? That's money, right? And if you had two sons and one got lost, would you wait for his return? Well, yeah. And so, who is the subject of all three stories? Well, in the first story, the subject really is the shepherd. And when he finds his lost sheep, he's happy. That's the picture of Jesus, who went to find the sheep that was lost. And the second story talks about a coin. The coin is dead, doesn't even know it's lost. But the story really is about the woman who she found her money. Man, if you ever lost your wallet or your purse and then you find you're so happy, right? Well, the story is about the woman. She put a light and then she found the coin after it was in the darkness under the bed and she swept.  Well, then who's the third story about? And it begins like this. In chapter 15, and it starts in verse 11, there was a man who had two sons. Wow, the story of a father. We make so much emphasis on the lost sheep and the lost coin and now the lost son. But we forget that really Jesus was telling the story about himself and the Holy Spirit who searches out sin in darkness. And then the third story is about the heavenly father. And so a man who had two sons. Let's pick it up in verse 20. You know the story, so I'm not going to tell you what you already know. It's a story of a man with two sons. A younger says, can I have my inheritance now? And the father gives it to him and he goes and he spends it foolishly. Wastes the money. While he had the money, he had friends. And then when the money was gone, the friends had left him. It says he joined himself to a farmer. We're going to explain what that means. He did not hire himself. He did not get a job for pay. He joined himself to a farmer and nobody gave him anything. He longed for the pods, the pigs ate. Then finally in his muck, in his mud, in his desperation, he said, wait, in my father's house. I love that term. In the house of my father, the slaves live better. And so he knows he has to repent. So he's getting out and he walks all this distance barefoot. And he comes approaching the father's house. Now this is where we pick up the story in verse 20. And I want to speak to you. Is there a timer going for me by the way? All right. So I have 32 seconds, 32 minutes and 27 seconds, 26, 25. I love that. That's great. So there are eight details to the reaction of the father. And the father is Jesus's description of God, the Heavenly Father. Are you following this? But there's application for you, dad, and for me, a father. And now a grandfather of seven grandchildren. To emulate what the Heavenly Father did in reaction to this boy. Are you following this? This is the best illustration of a father in the entire Bible. And it's in Luke chapter 15. And in verse 20, we read that the boy arose and he came to his father. And when he was still a long way off, here are the eight details. And then I'll go one by one. Number one, the father saw him. Number two, he felt compassion. Number three, the father ran to the boy. Number four, the father embraces him and kisses him. Then in verse 21, the son confesses, dad, I messed up. I messed up. I sinned against him.  The dad totally ignores the confession. And in verse 22, he does four more details. But the father said, put on him the best robe. That's number five. Put a ring on his hand. That's number six. Put shoes or sandals on his feet. That's seven.  Amazing. Let's take each one of those eight details. Number one, the true picture of a father is that he's understanding. Verse 20. But while the boy was still a long way off, the father saw him. Do you know that as dads, we need to see our children? They live in our house. But dad, do you really see your child? Like I had two sons and a daughter. We were, the children were all born in New Jersey. And when they were 12 years old and 10 years old and my girl was seven, we moved to Charlotte because it was so much more affordable from New Jersey. So anytime you move with children in grade school or elementary school, it's a challenge because they're the new kids in school. And we moved from the north, like New Jersey, where they talk and drink coffee. What's the matter with you? Are you looking at me? Yeah, you're looking at me. Yeah. How are you doing? And in the south they say, hey, y'all. Thank y'all, bless your heart. How nice. So my kids were the Yankees. So one day we came home and I saw my 10-year-old son, Luke, the second born. He's kind of crying, trying to hide his face. Luke, what's the matter? He's crying.  Well, in the south, they're still fighting the silver war. Even though we lost, we ain't lost yet. And they call it Northerners Yankees.  So this father, in Jesus' story, he sees his son. He sees the condition of his life. He sees his pain. Do you know the Heavenly Father? He sees you. That's his heart towards you.  You see, the father saw him when he left the house. And now he sees him drawing near to the house.  Do you really see your kids? My dad was an immigrant. He was 60 when I was 16. But my dad saw my life. He could read me. He knew my moods. He knew what was bothering me. Dads, it's time for us to be involved in the lives and in the friends of our children. Can I hear an amen to that? No, I work. You take care of the kids. Brother, bless you that you work hard. That you have two shifts and two jobs. But your kids don't want money. They want you. They want you to see them.  I did a Facebook quiz, or survey, actually, better said, at that time it was 8,000 followers. Only one question. In your opinion, what is the greatest need in Slavic churches? Well, I'm from a Slavic background, so I wrote that question for Slavic kids. There's many, many hundreds of churches around the nation. Question again. One question quiz. In your opinion, what is the greatest need in Slavic churches today? I thought they would say English, that was number three. You know what number two was? I wish my pastor prepared better sermons. Well, that's not true about Hungry Jim.  I respect him so much. I mean, I'm learning from him, and he's younger than me, and I love it. I just love it. That was number two, preparing better messages. Number one. Need in Slavic churches. From Slavic kids ages 14 to 34.  I wish my father spent more time with me. Yeah. That's what I said. Wow. But you know what? I did that with my two sons. Because boys get their identity from their father, and if the father's not a churchgoer, the boys won't want to go to church. If the father's not a man of prayer, the boys won't pray. If the father doesn't raise his hands in worship, because that's just too weird for him, the boys will look at the father. They'll copy the father. Boys want to be like their daddy. And so, do you see your son? Do you know what direction they're heading? Number two. Not only did the father see him, the father's heart was filled with compassion. I don't know what your father was like, but you know, sometimes when our children mess up and they break things, like, I remember I had a painting in the living room. It was a beautiful painting that had a blue ocean and bay of San Francisco. And there's a big moon, and it was shining on the water. There was a beautiful sailboat. This was an expensive painting, probably the most we could afford in our brand new little three-bedroom house that we had. I paid the babysitter, and the kids were all asleep, and I noticed a ball-sized hole in my painting.  You could play ball in the hallway. You can't break anything. You could play ball in your bedroom. You could wreck it. There's nothing to break. But not in the living room because mommy has nice things in there. So next Saturday morning, I see this ball-sized hole and I say that hole. They're about 13 and 11. Magic. Magic. There was some combustible powder on it. No. Tell me what happened. And nobody's confessing. I said, okay, you're both going to get burned. Well, no, I told him not to throw it. Well, you didn't catch it. Well, you threw it at 45-degree angle and I couldn't reach out.  I'm going to punish you. And you know what? In my day I could be arrested for this today. We had an instrument of reinforcement, shall I say, that usually holds your pants up.  I said, no, if I don't. You know, the funny thing is I used to count to 10 because I have a temper like any man and if you hit your children in your temper, that's what they see, the temper. So then I would literally count to 10 or 20, a long attack. And then you don't want to administer corporal. You don't want to. Never use your hand because that's to make them feel loved. Always an inanimate object. One time I found a belt. So I have found this Ukrainian spoon. It's like this big. All my belts reappeared in magic. And so I would say, okay, dad is going to give you three, four or five hot ones. I would explain to them. And before I administered corporal punishment, I would say to them, do you know what you did? Yeah, I threw the ball in the room. No, no, besides that, yeah, I broke dad's rule. Was that the right thing or is that the wrong? No, that's the wrong thing. Did you lie about it? Yeah, we lied about it. So those are two things you did wrong. Now, daddy is going to help you not to do that again. Turn over. And so, wham, wham, wham. And you know, agent took it like a man and he kind of cried because it hurt but I never walked away. I would hug him and hold on to him. Now, Luke, the second morning, he said, dad, wait, let me explain. Okay, so I was standing here. I threw the ball. I couldn't reach it. Dad, it wasn't my fault. Mmm, okay, Luke. Is that it? Yeah. Okay, turn it over. No, no, dad, there's more. There's more. So, anyway, and he was like lawyering his way. Now, the hardest thing for me to do was not to laugh. Okay? But you know, I had to administer punishment and so finally I did. But you know, not all kinds of punishment are corporal. Some are even worse than corporal. And I'll tell this story quickly. But these stories are so good because they're from my family. So, anyway, with my oldest, A.J., he was six at the time, we decided to go to a, he decided to go to a birthday party for his neighbor, Charlie. So this was at, I had to buy a present at Toys R Us. So I thought, ah, this is an object lesson. Andrew, his name was Andrew, but we call him A.J. We're going to go to Toys R Us, but today we're not buying you anything. Today is all about your friend, Charlie. So let's buy him one gift. Are you okay that we're not buying you anything? At home, there's no toys invisible. Yes, Dad, we're fired. Okay, Charlie. Soon as we got to Toys R Us, Dad, Dad, look at this, Dad, Dad, look at that.  Dad, can I buy, it's only a dollar. Well, part of me says it's a dollar. Let the kid have a ball, right? But then I thought about what I'm trying to teach him. Right? It's not about him. I said, Andrew, put the ball back. It's not about you today. It's about Charlie. Remember what you said? Okay, Dad. I put the ball back. So we leave Toys R Us, paid for the gift for Charlie, and my driver was like an incline.  I didn't pay for that pink ball. Now the funniest thing is my son looks at the ball then he looks at me and you know what he does? He says, Dad, look. I kid you not. This kid is so quick. This kid is so smart. Dad. I'm trying not to laugh because it's funny. You stole that ball, right? Uh, yeah. Are you going to punish me? I said no. Ah, Dad, you're the best. No, we're going to drive to Toys R Us and I'm going to talk to the manager. You're going to give the ball back to the manager and ask forgiveness for stealing it. No, punish me! I said no, no, no. No, you're going to remember this for the rest of your life. No, Dad, please don't embarrass me. I didn't embarrass you. You embarrassed yourself, right? You're not going to steal anymore. I know this for a fact. Dad, please, Dad, I promise I'll never leave the house of Dad. We drove back to... So I'm dragging my boy and I taught him not to say, I'm sorry. You know, I'm sorry is the worst way to ask forgiveness. Like, I'm sorry, it's your fault. I said, you're not going to say I'm sorry. This is what you say. God has convicted me of stealing this ball. Will you please forgive me? I'm such a bad dad. I'm dragging him. He's holding this pink ball. Can I speak to the manager? Yes, yes, yes, the manager. What's the matter? What's the matter? My son has something to tell you. Ma'am, God has convicted me of stealing this ball. Would you please forgive me? And she starts crying. She says, it's okay. I said, it's not okay. It's stealing. Don't tell him it's okay. Forgive him. I forgive you. Sometimes the lessons are so hard to teach. But the principle is there.  No. That is discipline as well. My other son was very mouthy because he's kind of like lawyer like.  And he was interesting. Like, how am I going to do that? We were in the kitchen and he's mouthing off and I'm backing up to the kitchen sink. And with my thumb, I press the lever for detergent soap. And I have it in my hand. I said, are you mouthing off? Yeah. I said, stick out your tongue. He goes, I want like that. He was blowing bubble. Dad, I don't believe you did that. He's like a bubble machine. My son was cured of talking back to his father. I can tell you story after story. But I want to tell you what this father did. He didn't scream at his son and say, where's my money? What did you do with your inheritance? Look at you. You don't have any shoes.  Did the father do that? Did he? He did not. You know why? Because sometimes our sins punish us. And when God sees how broken we are, how ashamed we are, how our sins really beat us up, he doesn't want to punish us. All he wants to do is embrace us and forgive us. I'll tell you a story that happened to me when I was a five year old. So my dad had a house and he painted it mint green, a beautiful enamel color for exterior. Exterior paint, if you know this it was not latex in those days that could be broken down with water, water based paint. In those days, paints were oil based or enamel. You had to use serpentine or spirits, strong spirits with alcohol to cleanse them. So my dad had the exterior house painted and then he put the cans of green paint in the basement.  And so we went into that bin and there was an extra lawn on the floor so it wouldn't be on bare cement. And me and two little other boys, five years old we found these cans of paint. We started to paint, we opened up the cans, took paint broke, painting the walls mint green. There was a mirror, we thought that would be nice to have a mint green mirror. We painted the whole mirror green. It's not a mirror anymore. But we're five so it doesn't matter. We saw a suitcase or two, really old. Ah, they look better green. Somebody knocked the paint over and the linoleum started to be really slippery. So then we started sliding and ice skating. I kid you not. We are ice skating on linoleum with enamel paint. And of course we're sliding into home plate. Safe! Make a long story short, we were green from the top of our heads to the bottom of our kids sneakers.  They're doing something down there. Oh, they're just playing. Let them play.   What did you do? And my dad, you're going to get a licking, right? But first you got to get the paint off. So they took my clothes off put me in the in the bath with soap and water. The paint's not coming off. So my mom takes a little bit of turpentine puts it in the water. A little bit came off, but not a lot. So how do you get this kid clean, right? She puts the whole gallon of turpentine into the bath water. Oh, now you bring it? You notice I was dying before? Did you have any compassion? I'm busting. I go, thank you. I should be grateful, right? You didn't have to bring it. I like humor. I like humor. So she poured the whole gallon of turpentine into the bath. And the paint came off together with my skin. It's not funny. It burned like Peclaw.  I had a temperature of a hundred, four, three for like two days. Did my parents spank me? They didn't have to. My sin spanked me. Are you following this kid's story? And that's what happens with sin in our lives. And the father in the story that Jesus told about the heavenly father, he didn't say one word of scolding. He didn't do one act of discipline. He saw his son and his heart was filled with compassion. I want to tell you something. If you're messing up now today in your life, God's not angry with you. He sees you. He sees you. And your pain is his pain. And your hurt hurts his heart. Because you're his son. You don't belong to the world. You don't belong to Satan. You are the creation of God through birth. And his heart goes out to you. His heart is filled with compassion through you. This is what Jesus said about God the father. And we read these words and we only think about the son. We don't think about the son. No, Jesus was telling the story about the father. He recognized that his son's poor choices were enough punishment. How is your compassion? Your children know that your love is unconditional and acceptable. Number three, who was approachable? Who ran to whom first? The Bible says that the boy walked home but when the father saw him and his heart was filled with compassion, the father ran to the boy.  My daughter got her driver's license and we bought her a little Honda Civic. She called it Ronda the Honda. She was out of light and a group of about six guys and some girls just overly packed the car, slammed into her out of red light. It wasn't her fault at all. She caused me broken her daddy. That was a car accident. These guys hit me from the rear. I was on a traffic light just standing there. So what was my question? How's the car? What did you do to my car? Is the car all right? Did I ask that question? No, silly question. I said, honey, are you okay?  I want to tell you something very strange coming from Ukrainian parents. But my wife is just like me in terms of approachability and she said to my two sons, if you ever mess up in your life, for example, you get a girl pregnant, you come and you tell us first and we will help you. That's not permission that's saying we will not abandon you, we will not leave you. If you ever go to jail, if you ever get in a car accident, you ever get drunk, drunk, not permission, but you come and we will bail you out for it. Do not call someone else.   Well, they have to feel that they can. And number four, the father in the Bible was affectionate. He runs to the boy but he doesn't think of the pig smell. He doesn't think of the filth that's on the clothing of the boy. The father and all his finery and all his cleanliness and all of his properness.  Did you know that Jesus is actually saying to the Pharisees, you know what God really wants to do? He wants to hug you.  Again, I don't know what your dad was like but my dad was affectionate. And the way we think of our dad sometimes affects the way. Not always, sometimes affects the way we think of our heavenly father. And my dad, he was such a kisser. He was such an affectionate man.  He smelled like old spice aftershave. It's a cheap drugstore aftershave. But when I smell old spice, whenever I do I think of my father. Because he would hug me. When I was a little boy, I'd say, come daddy, tell me a Kazuchka. Tell me a little story. And we lay down in the bed and I put my head in the crook of his arm and he would tell me about an orphan in Ukraine. And I would cry about this tell me a tale. That was my dad. That was my dad. He was not embarrassed to show physical affection. You know, I raised my two sons the same way. We kissed. We never shook hands. We always hug and kissed. So my son, my oldest, he played professional baseball. He was player of the year in Furman University, one of the top universities. Division I baseball, he was a shortstop. And out of 500 players he was player of the year. There's only two names on the stadium in South Carolina University. A kid from 1950 something and my son, Andrew David. He was drafted by the San Diego Padres and played professional baseball for two years until he became a doctor or surgeon. So imagine me. I'm with my wife in the stand. We're so proud of our son. He's the star of the team. And he's there swinging the bat and people are milling around. So we come down the stadium steps and I'm thinking to myself, okay George, okay George. What college don't embarrass him? Americans don't kiss. They shake hands. So don't kiss him. Shake hands. Okay. All right. Got this. Okay. Hey Andrew and his buddies are all around. How are you? And he pulls me and he kissed me and both cheeks says, Dad, what's the matter?  I go, oh no, I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. Affection. I think we need more affection in our families. What do you think? I think people just need, you know, Dad, the more you hug your daughter appropriately, the less you'll look to be in the arms of another boy. My daughter was all over me.  Now she's madly in love with her husband and they have two children and yeah, it's a wonderful thing to be affectionate. Are you affectionate? Don't withhold physical affection. Number five, when the father said bring the best robe, some people will interpret that only spiritually. Okay, the white robe is the robe of salvation. So the heavenly father takes away dirty clothes and then when we're saved, he gives us a robe of righteousness. All correct. But now, how does that relate to that physical father with a physical son who came with dirty, ratty, smelly, torn up clothes? It wasn't the clothes that he was trying to raise up. It was the self respect of the boy. When you lack self respect, you don't care what you look like. I'm not talking fashion, okay? I'm not talking moda or how you're supposed to look. I'm talking self respect. Whether you're casual or dressy like me this morning, I make a choice to wear a white shirt and a tie. I'm enjoying myself. I know I'm overdressed with you and I don't care. I mean, this is who I am. I just love this and I love the fact that you can rock jeans and man, the girl with the red shoes she had my attention. Those red boots were great. It's not the clothing that makes the man. It's the man who makes the clothing. So when I was in Bible school I had, I was a real clothes horse. I took two suitcases of shirts and pants and I'm going to get to the bottom line really quickly. And I went to school in youth of the mission in Switzerland in 1975 and all these guys got saved off the streets. One guy was saved out of a jail in Afghanistan. He was an American. He tried to smuggle hash in an accordion. Do not smuggle hash in an accordion. They'll say play the accordion and like and there's marijuana and hash in the accordion. He was sentenced to a life sentence in Afghanistan jail. His wife went to the American Embassy in Kabul and they said we can't help you. There's strict laws against drugs in Kabul and she began to fast and pray and intercede and through a miracle they released him and he was one of the students. He had no clothing, nothing. So I gave him all my shirts and they had nice French cuffs on there. I said here are some cuff links as well. So I gave away all my clothes and I came home with two shirts and one pair of corduroy and a pair of sandals for six dollars I bought in Greece. My dad says where's your clothing? You know a preacher has to dress up. My dad's old school right and how much I am like my dad. I said dad I gave it all away. No, no, no, he took me to New York City. We lived 18 miles from New York City in New Jersey. He bought me a brand new suit. My dad I didn't have the money but he wanted to raise my self-respect. How do you raise the self-respect of your... Can you give value to your children? Another way you can clothe them with words of encouragement, not just material clothes. Do you know that encouragement especially among Slavic people is very scarce? Oh no, don't praise the kid. His head will grow very big. The head won't fit anymore. The head will grow big. No, no, that's if you praise beauty and that's if you praise strength and that's if you praise attractiveness. But if you praise character quality you're reinforcing the desire to have more character quality. Do you know that the father in heaven only spoke on three occasions that people could hear a physical voice from heaven on three occasions in the New Testament and all three were in encouragement of Jesus Christ. When Jesus obeyed and got water baptized the father in heaven could not hold himself back and he said, that's my boy that's my beloved son and then he added in who I am well pleased. That's encouragement. When Jesus told parables to his disciples okay, a parable about the five talents five talents, two talents, one talent. The guys who had five and two brought him back. What did Jesus say in the parable the master said well done, what? Good and faithful servant, you made me happy.  Heaven is a place of acceptance. Heaven is a place of raising self-esteem not to pride but to worthiness and to value. The devil says you're garbage. The devil says you lost. The devil says your clothing is dirty.  Hallelujah. That's our heavenly father and that's the dad we need to be. When's the last time you said to your son or to your daughter son I'm so proud of the man of God you are.  Hallelujah. My dad did that with me one time I was a young preacher you know what I have to confess I had a lot of cockiness there's not a little bit of pride I had a lot there and one day I prepared a messaging I'm gonna knock him over like a bowling ball knocks over 10 pins and I threw a gutter ball I remember I got lost it wasn't turning out well in fact I stammered and stuttered and I messed up the sermon royally we had 135 families in this church I was a senior pastor and my dad went down from the platform and sat right there and he's shouting amen this is where it didn't belong I was so embarrassed I said okay grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the love of God you know laska the finishing prayer and I'm putting my head down and I'm going I'm not shaking anyway my dad stops me he was 5'6 I'm 6'2 I was 6'3 but I shrunk no seriously and he looks out to me he says son that was a good sermon I'm lying you know and I know I was a bad he says okay maybe you're right and then he says to me but you are a gift from God you know that moment I didn't care what the church thought I didn't care what anybody thought of me my dad thinks that I'm God's gift that means something to me wow in the 22 seconds I have left he raised my self-esteem number 6 he motivated achievement give him a ring you know a ring is a sign of authority that's where you share your power you share your authority with your children and I took all three of my kids to Ukraine with me in Mission Strip each one I took Luke to record with me in the album in the back we have an album in English it's yellow it says I will follow I was supposed to sing one song he ended up singing three I liked him I took it in Nashville two more and I was back up for him instead of him being back up for me so that English album is by national musicians top of the line and his voice is way better than mine than my niece and nephew also we also recorded a album in Spanish if you want to buy something that you can listen to in Spanish the album is called Alas de Fe there are songs in Ukrainian that we translated from Ukrainian to Spanish so my children don't speak Ukrainian they all speak Spanish what do you think? for those you don't have the gift of interpretation of tongues we have like four or five Ukrainian albums in the back I hear music playing that must mean the time is gone number seven and eight I'm finishing number seven the father said put shoes on his feet we always think it's because he lost his sandals or broke them no it's because he sold himself into slavery he joined himself to a certain farmer this is the son of a wealthy father who now is a slave and the master took away shoes so they wouldn't run away barefoot but this boy walked a great distance barefoot and when his father saw his son the son of a wealthy father a man as a slave he said you are not a slave the boy said I'll be a slave in your house the father said you're not a slave you're a son put sandals back on his feet there's a lot I could say about that grace over law but the last one I love the most I don't know if it was a Tuesday Wednesday or Thursday but the father didn't care he said my son is home let's celebrate what brought this boy home what motivated the boy to say in the mud among the pigs wait a minute in my father's house they live better it's the idea that his father's house is a warm place a place of celebration is your house a place where your kids want to go back to is your family a place of warmth and affection would you stand with me


Right. Hello. Welcome to the Lightning Talks for today. Your first talk is on regaining the sovereignty of your router from Lucas Lissotta. Hello, everybody. Thank you very much for being here today on Sunday morning. I really appreciate that you took your time and your efforts to be here. Have a long day yesterday. But yeah. So today we're going to talk about a very interesting topic that it's not just a legal, boring topic for lawyers, but it concerns all of us. Yeah. So I'm Lucas Lissotta. I work for FSFE. I am a Deputy Legal Coordinator and I'm directly involved with this campaign. Well, in order to talk a little bit what is router freedom, I divided my presentation in three parts. So first of all, we're going to see how it affects each one of us, why it's important. And then we will see also some basic legal aspects in order to understand what is going on in Europe concerning router freedom. And then the third part and the most important one, how each one of you can take part on this activity and have your own free router at home. Because we think that it's very important for us to enforce our rights and to have control and sovereignty over our own equipment. So what is basically router freedom? Well, router freedom is the right that every customer has to use their own equipment at home or at work. So ISP internet service providers, they usually they force their own routers to their customers and they don't allow we customers to use our own router. So router freedom is the right that each one of us has to use our own equipment when we are connecting to the internet. If you want to use a router that has installed free software inside of it, we can. And there's a lot of arguments. I listed the four of the most important one, and we're going to see that effect. These four arguments is already enough to see how that is important for each one of us. The first one is, well, freedom of choice. We have this right to use the equipment that we want. This is a right that has been confirmed and has been protected by European law. So the second argument is that when we have a free router or a router that we have free software in it, a router that we can choose to use, it's privacy friendly. So we use that in order to protect our own data. Well, from this qualified audience, we all know that all our data, our communication, our encryption, our backups, everything that is connected to the internet go through our router. And if we have some problems with that, of course, our digital sovereignty is under danger. Well, the third argument, free competition and compatibility right there. Well, ISP has created an entire market around the lack of router freedom. So if you want to connect to the internet, they can provide you a very simple router without Wi-Fi. Do you want Wi-Fi? Then you have to pay more for that. Oh, you want to use more computers to access the internet. You have to pay more for that. So this is very bad for the user. And besides, when we have just a few routers manufacturers in the market, we start to have a monopoly and they have control over technology. And FSFE is completely different about that. We as users, we must control our technology, not other people imposing their control over our own equipment. And of course, the security argument, the security argument maybe for a few of us is the most important one because if there is some problems with the ISP router or if they are slowly providing updates, critical updates, we, having our own equipment, we can install by ourselves a program of software that is more secure, that is based on community aspect and not just what ISP thinks. So basically, these are the arguments that we are trying to push on and try to educate people and to say, yes, let's do, let's use our own router because this is very important. Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about the legal issues. I promise you that it's not going to be boring. It's very straightforward to understand. So since 2015, there is this net neutrality directive and in the article 3 it says that every citizen, every European citizen has the right to use and to choose their own equipment. They call it the term of their choice. And then in 2018, there is a very important piece of legislation called European Electronic Communications Code saying that all the definitions that public authorities and private actors, all the definitions that applies to equipment and to applies to routers must be, must be adjusted to ensure net neutrality. Well, but there is a small problem and let's see what is this small legal problem. Some ISPs are telling that, okay, users have the right to choose their own router, but in fact, router is part of the public network. So if a router is not, it's not property from users. They are ISP property and we think that is very bad. This discussion has reached the European level and has reached the BEREC. A little bit, BEREC is the Board of European Regulators of Economic Communications and they say, yeah, well, router is part of the public network and then users have no right to choose it because it's our property, right? But we at FSFE, we have been fighting this war for years and in Germany, we manage in 2016 to pass the router law that says that in fact, the network termination point that where the network, the public network ends, it ends in the wall. So in the plug where you can plug your modern or your router and everything that's inside your home, it's your property and you have the right to choose your own equipment. Yes. However, this is not like this in all Europe. So we have conducted a research at FSFE and we have seen that it's not like this. They're in other countries. People, although these rules are already present in European legislation in those countries who have already implemented these European rules, international legislation, there are still lack of awareness. So as we can see here, a lot of countries users cannot use their own routers. So ISP by contract regulations, they impose their own routers to users and they cannot choose their own equipment. Well, and how here where things started to get interesting because we can do something about it and you can do something about it. So we divided into things. If you wanted to organize an activity in your own country here in Belgium, well, in every European country, if you wanted to start an activity in a campaign for router freedom, we have prepared a wiki with a lot of information beginning from zero. How to speak with ISP, how to speak with national authorities and public authorities and how to organize yourself, which arguments you can use, which counter arguments you can use. So everything is written on our wiki. And our work in FSFE, it's all about community. So we cannot and we don't do anything by ourselves. It's our commitment. It's everybody working together and raising our voice and showing to public authorities showing to ISP that we have the right to use our own equipment. So we have prepared it. Please use it, go there, check it, try to communicate with your public, with your political representatives in order to spread this board and in order to have your own router in your one house. So since we are in the university here today, I have prepared a small homework for you. So tomorrow, Monday or this week, we will try to check router freedom by ourselves. This is very easy. This is an experiment. I think it's very good for you and for us in order to have a more precise panorama about router freedom in Europe. So what is the homework? What is the task? First, contact your or a random ISP in your region. So I think everybody has a connection to the internet. You have an ISP in your home, in your city, in your region. Call them, send a short email or if you are not pleasant with your ISP, you are planning to change your ISP. Okay, just contact your future ISP, send them an email and say, Number two, I want to use my own router. I have bought my router in eBay. I have bought my own router on internet. I want to use it. I am allowed to do that.  And then you ask for the login data to public network. This is very important because in order to have your own router working at home, you need your own login data, login data to public network. So send them a message and say, I want to use my own router. Please provide the public network login data. And then let's see what's happened. And then if they say, yeah, fine, cool. Cool. If they say no, you are not allowed to do that, please share your experience at community.fse.org and we are most pleased to help you to get your own router or to tell them that in fact you have the right to use your own router. So if you want to try that, it will be excellent to see what is the router freedom panorama in your region. Well, yeah, I think that's all that I really want to talk to you today. I really appreciate it for you to come in today. And if you have questions, please let's discuss it. Yeah, so in fact, the Barrack, the board of European regulators, they are analyzing the technical aspects and they have provided the guidelines in order to how to do that in order to not harm the public network. However, we do think that with some regulations we can do that but not restricting the right to users to use their own equipment. It's perfectly fine to use our own equipment in order to not harm the public network. Yes. Yeah, that's a good question because then involves another type of legal considerations. Here we would like to at least enforce the equipment to have access to internet. Yeah, because TV, it's a little bit different. But when we are wanted to have access to the internet, usually they do this combo thing and they put everything in the same box. But I would like, yeah, OK, so for TV, it's fine, but I would like to have my own private connection to the internet and then things started to get a little bit messy. So this example here is would be to have the router for the internet. I think we're out of time. Thank you very much. Thank you very much again.