Thank you, Pramay. That was very exhaustive and pretty much you had covered everything but you made it sound very easy as if someone has to just read and someone has to just Just write some 200 words a day, but it is a lot more difficult Probably your background is that of research and you have been doing so much of writing already before doing the newsletter But I have so think of it like this. I know that Writing is very difficult. It takes a while and Developing an audience audience also takes a while and since you also had you also had access to an audience for some time Before writing the newsletter But yours is a very niche audience Perhaps a lot of them will not even mind paying a bit just to access the kind of content you guys do so I would want to know when you started the newsletter Or maybe even past in the past if you have tried to do something similar What did how did you think about your audience because your audience comes from across the board? Like I have experienced I have done a course at Takshila and they were engineers. They were students They were medical professionals.  Focus at who should I target? Who was your target audience when you started thinking, right? So my intended audience as I told you the main aim was to educate about public policies, right? Let people know that what is happening around in public policies. So my Intended audience when I began with was anyone who's not in the public policy domain already So someone who's just as a marginal interest about reading about government and what happens. So that was the aim So it's not meant for an expert audience In fact, it's not meant for a niche audience as well It is meant for just people who are interested in what happens in the government. That's all Those who even have a cursory interest towards it. So that's why a lot of frameworks and all which we share are Basics, right? Do we are not dealing with really complex ideas in the newsletter? As in in the frameworks, we don't want to complicate things. It's not meant for an expert audience as well So that was what I began with and we've Stayed along that path over the last seven eight months. So a lot of our audience is people who are You know, just wanting to know about public policies well across age groups Who want to know about it? Largely people it's a lot of our story telling is about India. So that's that's how we went about it But we've seen an additional, you know bonus coming in that there are people who are also experts in that area also being subscribers But that is not what we intended and that's not what we aim to do also when we're telling stories on our So I am a subscriber of your newsletter and before I would subscribe to your newsletter I got attracted towards that Sheila because of the demonetization because I did not know how It happened why it happened and I wanted answers I had lots of questions and I thought understanding a bit about policy would solve that question Sol sol those answers and give me those answers But so I know that a lot of people like me But when I when I when I reached when I reached touch they were People who had already decided they wanted to get into the field of policy in the future and so on so forth What I want and when you decide about decide about the audience one way of knowing about the audience is not exactly knowing So today you have 2000 subscribers But did you also like did you try to speak with couple of people personally? Over a phone call or over a cup of coffee. Hey, I'm wanting to write Do you want to read something like this because you have access to That's one of the ways to know about the audience in the best possible way I mean agencies do that a lot of researchers do that We call it field research. Have you tried doing that or have you done that or do you plan to do that? No, what I did is write the first edition and send it to a bunch of people and then get feedback So that was my idea and I had already done writing before so I thought I'll Include some parts of it Create a structure and I just sent it to around 30 40 people whom I know and I sought feedback from that and then try to Improve on on that break that was my mode and not to think about it a lot first get started That's the most difficult part. So once I got started then I thought I'll I'll keep improving on the All right, any any specific example of Audience member or a community member who who you did not expect but they are there or they've written to you or you just Say someone who is a musician or someone who is A sportsman and they are kind of enjoying your newsletter I know like a lot of academics would be there And wanting to write and wanting to know about these things more Yeah, uh, I don't have I don't have an idea about that Uh, I have not I don't think any sports person is there though. I would love to have sachin dendulkar subscribed to my I think it would be raul dravid more so of Maybe I'll come I think we have arvin who wants to ask a question. Uh, arvin I will try to unmute arvin And see Arvin, please go ahead. Uh Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you Hi, uh, brunette. Thanks. Uh, this was nice. I I wanted a bonds of an idea I'm uh a portfolio manager And I work at quantum advisers. So I write A lot on india macro And india investing and I have two sets of audiences one is the For an institutional investor So that those are some of our clients and and we have potential clients and I write them and I write them And then we have quantum mutual fund in india, which is retail investors And so the the language the context should be the same but the language is very different I have been thinking about writing Uh Something on india. So maybe something on india insights uh So but but the thing is my the Where i'm confused right now on starting that thing on substack or something or any other platform is Part of it would be common. I i'm not my I don't have different views right my views are same I have a particular view on demoralization. I have a particular view on gst And I have particular going over it and fiscal And I will be writing very similar pieces. So one will go as an official email from quantum As an as an official piece or And I also wanted to start something which is on my name, but I'll use quantum references Uh, uh, is that does does that make sense? And and I don't I don't want to be there This is gonna be the picture that I'm I'm working. So the india insights also is a Is an effort from quantum from urban Uh to get more people to know about quantum know about our views So it's kind of half marketing but But also just to get your views out because when you do your own news letter with your own email It goes only to the dedicated potential plans that you have But here with the subject if it's good enough It might just Let me move over and also Get people to engage. So this is where I'm stuck. Should I do it or not? So I mean we will cover uh, I mean since we're right not talking about audience But this part of it will surely cover towards the end towards the next few questions It will probably give your answers. If not, then please come back and obviously we'll discuss more about this Just just give us a couple of because Let's understand how to first address the audience because that is the most key thing the most important thing to start with the newsletter Uh, with writing obviously, there are various strategies and various ways to look at it I'll come back to you. Maybe give us another 15 minutes Just stay there Yeah, Pranay Pranay can you hear me? Yeah Yeah, so my my Obviously he has an idea and he wants to know more how to go about crafting the newsletter. So this is what I you should also kind of When you the first idea which came to you and you have an audience in mind now that okay This is the kind of audience I want to write it can be anyone who has a cursory interest and Uh, reading about public policy Then how did you start thinking of what what should be the larger? Like you said you chose a theme and then you started coming up with a format with raghu There is another question. Who is raghu? How should people find raghu on twitter or elsewhere? So that is another thing which I think uh, we should we should do So please share about raghu for a second. Who is raghu and and then tell us how did the initial idea Come to the fusion. How did you think about the format and the kind of uh topics or the content pieces you wanted to do it Yeah, so raghu is raghu like I I don't know who is that's that's enough. It's just like Okay, so people can't find raghu online or talk with him. It's just okay. Generally not online So you want to find him on any social media He's the policies here policy sage sitting in the jungle somewhere and thinking of ideas Okay, so the next part Yeah content wise, right? So when I started as I told you my idea was to pick a discipline and not a domain Uh that I'm on a deep dive on so the way I thought about it is let me just Share things which will make my audience You know reflect on any public policy that is happening and make them think that you know What was this the right way to go about things or not? You know, so that was the Reflection that I wanted to spark in the audience and that's what my aim was That's why so then I went about thinking. Okay, given that I have to Make people reflect on any public policy. What content should I have it? So that's when one content that I thought was I'll share frameworks, right? So when you there are frameworks in public policy, we still when change happens in any Policy, there are frameworks which when a public policy actually gets picked up for implementation There are frameworks which tell you why uh, you know, our capacity is low state capacity And that's why implementation policies are always good. But implementation is always bad, right? Why is that a common thing to say so Given that I had read some of these and I thought I'll share those frameworks Stakeholder management another important thing in public policy. There are a lot of frameworks on that So I thought if I try to educate people, maybe it will help them reflect on when they are thinking about public policy That was the one was one way the second one that I told you was a lot of policies which are You know Happen and then a lot of times we give excuse right that you know, you know, the idea was great But just the execution went wrong I wanted to break that myth because a good policy should also have implementation in mind And that's why I thought we'll have this section called policy WTFs and talk about Uh things that happen on a daily basis and the repercussions that might happen Even without that policy happening, you can foresee some of them An example I can give you is there was this In the national green tribunal has banned RO water purifiers about a particular TDS range I don't know. It just happened a couple of weeks ago. So I mean, that's quite egregious that you're banning water purifiers And so we wanted to look at what are the consequences of it How will how are you going to administer this even if you ban it? What will be the consequences when you ban something? How there will be a black market which might develop and so on and so forth, right? So those are the kinds which we wanted stories which we wanted to tell And that's why we have a section on that The third one is we read a lot on foreign policy as well And it is another subset of public policy But that's something which we read on often and always there are many interesting things happening in the public in the foreign policy realm So we picked one story a week on that particular section And then the fourth section which Raghur writes is he's a movie buff. So he writes on How movies tell you something about public policies, you know, so That's how it's just a combination of our interests Which flows into public policy and we come at it from different angles So I am looking at it from the point of view like I am creating a newsletter So I okay, I know about my audience now somewhat from what I interest what you've said I know about my audience. I also know about the Broad things and also some bit of depth in which I have some depth and understanding which I want to share Now I have these two ideas, okay Raghur can write about movies and policies you can write about the foreign policies And and then about different formats and frameworks and to evaluate if something has gone wrong Now I have these two things in mind now and I want to craft the first newsletter And I want to send it to 30 40 odd people who I already know How could how did you decide? Oh, it will have three Longish articles one 150 word article or it will have a image and an interesting One liner right next to it so that people can have some it It can it can have some humor So if you can recollect like the first one, which you remember How did you go about setting it a type setting as they used to say in the past? How did you put it in on the paper and this and before sending it? Yeah, so One thing that I thought was it shouldn't be long at all So initially when I began with each story each section which I talked about the thing I had in mind was it shouldn't be more than 200 to 300 words because the longer it is The more difficult it is for people to read. So that's how I thought of it Just give an image on frameworks generally I share an image and just tell the story of what that framework can Help you think about public policies. So that is how I thought about it And I always started with the policy wtls because that is the humor part. There are a lot of things which happen Which go wrong and then they have lessons to learn from that So I thought keep humor in on top and write really short articles So 200 words each you can buy in five sections if you have thousand thousand 200 words Did you have a reference? Did you really appreciate some other newsletter before you thought of writing a newsletter Like when I started writing a newsletter, I had a couple of very good references like Benedict Evans newsletter used to be like very short and at times a crisp summary about it Then at the same time someone from scroll called Rohan started writing newsletter more the political fix It had like first appeared like articles on the news on the website itself Then obviously it became a newsletter. So I had these references So do you have like did you start with the reference of the two which you really liked in the beginning? Actually, I have been subscribed to all these newsletters that you mentioned from a long time back And brain pickings by yes Also really good, but for this newsletter I didn't have any sort of reference in mind because I was doing something which I have been seen elsewhere. So I didn't have a specific model in mind when I started, you know, I thought let me just try with this But I'm sure because I would have read those some of those ideas would have Poculated in this as well Like for example, the thing that I took away from Bill Bishop's newsletter is If you have a lot of blog posts and you can have really short summaries about Particular news item that is also a great way to tell right. There's like the old blogging style, right? You have just 200 words about what you felt So those were some things that we still have in our newsletter as well But for the newsletter as such I didn't have a specific model in mind All right, so now I so it's like a ladder We are like kind of climbing like we have started with the audience in the next is a broader content strategy Which is like you just mentioned these are the four or five building blogs that you have And then how did you decide about substack because I'm sure you guys were not using substack before In the like takshila sends out dispatch. I'm assuming it uses mailchimp to send uh dispatch And probably you were familiar with that software But since you were mentioning that it kind of bothers you when you use mailchimp, then how did you look for the new Uh platforms which you wanted to subscribe to because a very some something very similar Platform has come into the market. It's called scroll stack, which is from the same publishing house, which is scroll And they're also Giving you the same set of tools are probably more customized towards Indian audience How did you go about looking for it? Uh, did you have a reference or did someone guide you? Or what and what was your learning from that? Yeah, which you could share Sure, uh, so yeah My colleagues also write two newsletters on china and they use mailchimp. Uh one another colleague uses uh mailer light for uh her writing so there are And as you said we were using mailchimp as well So there were a bunch of these platforms already existing, but uh, the thing was when I started using mailchimp the formatting and It was really painful for me And it is really good if you're writing an organizational newsletter because you will be having 30 articles So you want to put a lot of uh images and you want to put Articles you want to uh, you know format them differently indent them differently and all that right so for that I think mailchimp is really powerful, but that was not what my aim was my aim was Uh, just to write stories which are text heavy right and have an image or a podcast link write up so, uh The main factor in my mind was that it should be Most uncomplicated to start off with I shouldn't be thinking about the Platform at all to begin So that's why I started searching and uh, a couple of people I knew were already on substack So I just thought uh, does it work for them before that? I was on medium as well So there's a lot of writing on medium and blogs as well But then medium sort of became a gated thing right and you were not uh able to anyways reach out to a larger number of people So I was searching for something else and that's when so I saw a bunch of people writing on substack and The just the setup and all was so easy to get started off with uh, so I thought let me try this And it sort of worked that was my thinking and the bonus was I got a good URL also like public policy.substack.com it wasn't taken So why not and I'm sure people when when they search public policy At least it might help in the SEO later. So that was another sort of a small motivation before making that Right now substack does not allow you to domain map Map your domain and MailChimp allows it I I I think the new kid on the block scroll stack may allow that as well but that just I can understand and There are two more questions, which I want to like get slightly deeper with you is okay. You've decided everything You have decided the format you picked up a platform. You've written your first uh newsletter You're probably sent it to 30 odd people and you have gotten some feedback So there are two things. How did you incorporate the first feedback or the larger feedback which you got? What was the most useful feedback which you got from these users? and then how did you go about telling more people about your about your newsletter because Uh, obviously you can always write on twitter and facebook and instagram But then it's not that easy to just get those users the right right kind of users to start subscribing So what did you do the other two things? How did you incorporate the feedback and how did you spread the word around? Yeah sort of one good feedback that I can recollect now is that uh, when I started I just had a boring name like public policy review for each of the editions, right?  So they can expect more But the second thing was use a nice quote for the uh article title. So we have uh some cheeky Mostly it is a very corny title from Bollywood or something that we put but uh aim is that it should be funny And it should make people think, you know, it is let me just wait on it. So that was one good feedback. Uh, I I got Uh, the other one was yeah, generally feedback was don't write a lot like it shouldn't run into 3000 4000 words and We've not kept that sometimes we break that rule ourselves. But generally that was also a good feedback. Keep the article uh succinct Short they should tell uh the main story as soon as possible Because people hate scrolling. So the the more that you have That that just reminds me a scrolling point reminds me the sub stack look and feel on the phone is really good the font size that Uh, it gives even though Capabilities quite limited, but the appearance on the phone is really good and that was another thing that sort of Won't mean that let me start writing that Yeah, and how did you spend the word? That was how did you spend the word? Uh popularization was uh, I sort of uh, just thought I'll share on twitter itself because uh, I On twitter a lot of people who are related to public policy Uh, sort of uh, I'm connected to them. So I thought I'll share on that. So every edition. I just put screenshots of the stories Uh, and then I just put that week on week. So that's been the only channel that I have explored Um, yeah, I don't know. You might have better ideas on that friend. So it's just been built through that You pretty much have nailed it because headings matter a lot even the subject line of your newsletter matters a lot People tend to open after reading that. So I make a lot of effort when I write the heading Like you make a lot of effort before those headlines and you want to write it cheeky or interesting or humorous and uh, they they help actually and reaching out to your core audience is more important than reaching out to everyone in the world You know, if you already know your friend ask the friend or you ask your readers to share it with their friends This is a better way of building your audience and usually a building an audience takes a while like a year or two So people should be patient.  You have the you know luxury of reaching out to Lacks of people but that's only for a few set of people last question um Is there a process which you have is there a routine which you follow like every day you devote an hour to write To reading you have already mentioned a bit about writing every day for some time Uh sending it on the same time I send on friday at 7 30 a.m. Every day every week I don't budge from that. I mean I you also do the same thing Is there is there a process or routine to you building the newsletter in terms of you read every day for two hours or something like that um Actually, uh, I don't have a routine because that's my job in the sense that I'm reading public policy in and out so but what uh Like I said that once you have that frame in mind the theme in mind You will start filtering all the news that happens all the events that happen from that angle so I just maintain a list of uh all my sections in my newsletter and uh whenever I come across something which is you know Which might fit into framework section. I just note it down in a checklist, you know, and uh, then at the end of the week my flow is to write whenever let's say on a saturday or a sunday Then pick uh go through that checklist look at what has happened this week Is there something that relates to what has happened this week? Then just start writing on that particular topic. So that's how I write Uh, but raghu follows a different method.  So If if raghu is not if raghu is not an imagination if he exists he writes like that Okay, you also have to ask you also have to answer a arvind's question You want he has an idea and he works in a financial Company he wants to write about india in the same set of topics which he thinks everyone else is writing Writing uh, what how should he go about writing that or start writing about newsletter because he thinks everyone else is also Kind of writing the same kind of stuff. Yeah, uh, yeah, that was a good question arvind that I would say don't worry about it, right? I mean the your take that you will bring in your insight will be different from someone else. So there's uh, There's no problem with that the way And he mentioned about the marketing point as well, right because what he's going to write for the organization might be similar to his view so The way I thought of it is that you can think of the india insights or your own product as your views And in between you can obviously reference some things that your organization is saying or you can even put an ad That you want to put in towards the end. So that sort of works But this is sort of your view your point of view that you want to share with people. So, uh, I don't think it's a You need to worry about it. It's your view you want to share it Just get started and see the feedback the advantage with your own newsletter as against the organization if that is obviously you can it is more freedom You can explore any topic that you want in your newsletter. You can combine it the way you want You know, you can have very vague references if you want so that those things are an advantage for you So that's why I guess it's good to start with your own newsletter and And then it I try based on the feedback All right, Arvind. Do you have more something else to say something to add? Yeah, just a comment like uh, because I write on macro and investing I can't have charts A lot of our explanation is I don't charge to charge. So subtract You said subtract is not a is not as conducive for charts Or is or if if it has a piece has one or two jars All right Yeah, Arvind, we kind of lost you for a second So I think Arvind was Arvind was saying that it because he's he writes on macros and you'll have a lot more data and charts and graphics to Right and maybe subtract is not conducive. Uh, so should we also explore something else? Uh Do you want to add something to it? Yeah, I it's it's good for putting some images in so if you're going to create charts and visualizations of those Figures, then it's that works. Uh, it's not a problem on substack as well But if you have uh more complicated things and that's not the platform it's Even I observed it's a work in progress. So some things don't work in that for example, uh currently embedding a spot if I link For podcast doesn't work but embedding soundcloud works. So there are still work in progress But if you want to do a more complicated stuff, uh, I think ghost is another platform you might want to explore That is work and another one for slightly more academic thing is pubpub.org And it basically allows you to again combine a lot of things and Just fashion in the way you want and it's available free Open source so you can explore that as well. I I just found substack so easy to navigate and use so So I would I would say that don't worry too much about let let the problems arise when they arise And then you can tackle them just start with the first news letter which you want to publish publish it Just do it. Uh, Nike has made this made it easy for us to do it. Just do it and then worry about the So you have to develop your lens say demonetization happen when I would say that it's a policy problem I would say it's a public health problem because there would be less money in people's and Or I would say it's a small business problem. So depends upon the lens that you develop a data charts and all They're all secondary to your lens. I mean, whatever you want to convey There is a way out on each of these platforms for you to figure it out So don't worry about it. We are all here. You can always help. I mean reach out to us I will help you or maybe other members from the community Will help you. Thank you So I have Shavik We also have Shavik in the house, I guess and I think uh, I if he's here Shavik would raise uh He would not agree with you that people don't like scrolling because he he has already told me a hundred time people love to scroll Shavik, would you like to add something about scrolling and how should what should be the length of the newsletter? Should should they like keep it to 200 words and not have a longest one? Do you have any? Um, do you have any input Shavik? No, I don't think Shavik is here. So the thing is, uh Researchers have found that people do not mind scrolling. Uh, people don't mind scrolling And people as long as they find your so you have to kind of think and probably substack solves the problem that It has to have that. Uh, yes Shavik, please please speak Why Shavik not speaking do I have to allow him? Shavikji, please speak. You are allowed to yes Shavik Uh, can you hear me now? Yes Shavik. So no, I People don't like to scroll. I have not I have not followed the entire thing that prena has said Uh, so I I thanks for pulling me in on this But uh, I my comment is more in the web space And in the email space There is very recently As recent as yesterday. I think jason freed had put out on his twitter account Answering a small public question. What is good writing? And on on that front his response was a good writing is something where Someone who's reading wouldn't what would not want to stop reading and would want to continue reading the next line and the next line at the next line Uh, so if you can I think solve that problem that it doesn't matter how long your article is If you if you are not doing a good writing, I think if you look at it from that perspective Then then it doesn't matter how short your article is Even if people just skim through it, they'll probably not want to read through it And just skim through it and leave on the web side of things. I still agree with this But both the things have the same Uh, uh root point which is as long as the audience's interest is grabbed And that is not getting broken In that case scrolling is a secondary thing It's that you can't completely take it as an independent thing that oh people will always crawl or people will never scroll Uh, it it is more of a part that is the is is the content on that Page or on the email interesting But this one thing that you are quoting me on uh, Abhishek I would still stick to it being in the web context and I am still I'm nowhere near an expert on newsletters Uh, so that uh, so I'll rely on uh, Pranay's observation on this Okay, so I answer to that question and we'll click on the link We'll go to the web and then you can answer that question We are not reading in the in the client now and that's more of a bad thing. Thank you, Shobhik. Thank you so much Okay, we also have a Joseph Jude in our uh amongst us He's an attendee I don't I feel be interested in because he also sends a newsletter about uh inspirational about work about technology Um, I hope he if he has a question I would want him to join us and raise a question or two if he wants to Um, Joseph are you there? Yeah, Abhishek Yeah, Abhishek. I'm here. Uh, I didn't expect that you will you will should have questioned to me It was a surprise One of the things that I have observed is I mean, I've been writing for 10 years Uh, but only in the last two years or so There's an interest in my blog people are coming in and they are reading What I see is uh, probably you are an institution at the front but for independent bloggers like me Distribution matters Even in the newsletter space like wow This year beginning. I wrote a blog post which abhishek linked in his newsletter Still that is the top most uh traffic Blog uh in my uh blog, right? So I think the distribution matters. It is not only about writing. It's not about the medium. We talked about both I think the distribution also matters to bring in attention It is not like a question, but it's just my comment. Uh, thanks abhishek Welcome sir. Thanks a lot for sharing Can I just add to what Joseph mentioned? Yes. Yes, please. Yeah, no, that's a great point Actually, one thing that helps us again It's like in podcasts you have people referencing other podcasts and then they become popular, right? So given that now there's a critical mass of newsletters developing It also helps in some other references or new letter in that so even we observe sometimes the traffic went up and It was mentioned in another newsletter and someone, you know and said, you know, why don't you go and check this out kind of thing? So yeah, that is a good point. Okay. Shavik raised the question about ghost. Uh, is ghost How is ghost related to newsletter? Is this is has do you know anyone who uses ghost to send a newsletter or something? Because it's more of a cms website publishing thing as far as I know about it Uh, no, I haven't uh, I was uh evaluating this before writing Picking up substack. I don't know anymore written on ghost, but it provides uh, one of the settings in it Sort of provides you to write just uh, newsletters and email integration, which is quite good in that So it does what substack does it can do that plus some extra things. So, uh, you can use it to do any newsletter kind of function Is what I thought So I think uh, we have pretty much covered everything. I'll just recap very quickly like Most of what we have discussed falls into like four broad things finding your audience knowing about your audience Knowing why you want to write a newsletter because do you have a domain expertise? Or do you know do you read a lot you're passionate about it? And this is the larger thing you knowing your objective very clearly why you want and what are the outcomes you want Thing third thing is to developing your strategy, which is the kind of like you're developed Okay, these are the broad articles broad frameworks. I want to write and this these are broad broad content types I want to write and then finally Picking up the right technology, which is the right platform, which you picked substack So these are the four broad things which everyone has to like keep in mind when it When it comes to newsletter and the strategy and the content strategy behind it so and obviously And the more you read and the more the audience about these are the four broad things i'm just capping up Wrapping it up. Um, I want to thank pranay you for joining us for the discussion And the audience shawi joseph arvind for asking questions And to know more about this, um We have to you can go to to the hasgig.com slash content web for updates videos And the next session and hope to see more people and more audience in the next session We will cover more interesting things about the newsletters. Thank you pranay. Thanks so much. Thanks all. Thank you


Happy birthday, Summary Force Warriors and Families. This is a special day for the U.S. Summary Force as we celebrate 120 years of undersea dominance. Admittedly, today is unlike any Summary Birthday we've ever had in light of the global COVID-19 pandemic. As we reflect on the significance of our Summary Force Birthday, let's remind ourselves that for more than a century, Summary Force Warriors and Families who came before us pulled together to defeat every adversary who dare threaten our safety, our security, or our way of life. COVID-19 doesn't stand a chance against the resolve, grit, and tenacity of the American people, including our extraordinary sailors. As we go forward, I know all of you will carry on the fighting spirit that has powered our fleet since April 11, 1900. When the United States Navy purchased John Holland's Revolutionary Summarine, giving birth to our Summary Force. We've come a long way since then, but one thing remains constant. Steely-eyed Submariners have been patrolling the depths of our ocean on scene, unseen, and ready to strike when called upon. What our undersea forces accomplish every day is vitally important to our nation's defense. Our Summary Force is a critical part of global maritime security and the nation's nuclear triad. I want to personally thank each of you and your families who worked tirelessly to execute these missions. Today and every day, our foundational values remain centered on our people, our partners, and the preservation of our rich submarine traditions and heritage. Submariners, wear your dolphins with pride. I know I do. To the outstanding men and women of the United States Summary Force, who serve past and present, active and reserve, military and civilian, happy 120th birthday, may God bless our nation, our Summary Force, and our families. From the depths we strike.


Okay, Ivana, go ahead and make a quick explanation about why we're recording. Hi, hello, this is a CC meeting. We are supposed to be live streaming, but there is an issue on YouTube. So therefore, we are recording this meeting, which will be posted right after. So apologies, but it's not up to us, but the YouTube is not collaborating today. The first topic of our agenda is the New Usual, and it's the overall big picture about Europe and post-COVID life and what's DM's role in it. Does anybody want to give an overview of the last week, perhaps, Yanis? I'll have a go, if I may, because, well, good evening everyone, comrades, audience. Yesterday we had a very big announcement in Brussels. Are you all feeling the excitement? The European press, and beyond, is replete with reports of a major breakthrough. And when I read these reports, I never cease to be amazed by the capacity of journalists consistently and periodically to be all triumphant. And then two days later, after they study the actual numbers to feel deflated and say, ah, it was a dud. And then the next time there is an EU announcement, they're going to feel the same degree of triumph. So look, let's go straight to the meaning of it all. This is the first time that there was an attempt to create a package that was fiscally significant, that it made a macroeconomic difference. That is a package that had not loans, but transfers, and transfers between states so that some kind of rebalancing of the eurozone economy would take place, or the European Union economy would take place. The gist of it is that what the President of the European Commission yesterday announced, even though it sounded like a big number, 750 billion, compared to what Merkel and Macron had proposed, it's worse than what Macron and Merkel proposed. When I look at the numbers, because I studied them very carefully, what I see is 310 billion in grants, which sounds reasonably okay, not 500, which is what Merkel and Macron wanted, 310 billion in grants, and 250 billion in loans. Now, loans are irrelevant. The last thing Italy needs, Spain needs, Greece needs is more loans. We can get loans anyway. We live in deflationary times, interstates are very low, even for quasi bankrupt states and companies. So what matters is the grants. If you look at those grants, we're talking about a period of three years, 2021 to 2024. And if you look at the distribution of those across the years and compare it to European Union's overall income, we're talking about a 0.6, 0.56 to be precise, 0.56% of GDP for three or four years, every year. That's not zero, but it's nothing to celebrate. It's not something to write home about, especially if you take into consideration the fact that this is not an agreement, this is a proposal. We already see that there are going to be demands from Holland, from Denmark, from Austria, from Sweden, maybe from other countries for rebates. Every rebate that goes back to the government of the state means that the rebalancing between countries, the mutualization if you want, dies. So if everybody effectively takes back from the commission what it gives to the commission, then there are no transfers within the European Union. So we don't know to what extent there will be rebates. We know that they will be asked for. The more rebates you hear being approved in the end, the smaller the redistribution within the European Union. But even if there are no rebates, we're talking about tiny redistributions, very small redistributions. We're talking about, for instance, you know, in the case of Italy, which needs and is getting a large chunk of that money if you look at it, you know, it's been announced that Italy will get something like 8182 billion over two years, over four years. But if you take into consideration the amount of money that Italy will have to pay to the commission to support the commission's borrowing, if you take into consideration the rebates, if you take into consideration the fact that a lot of that money is going to be tied up with austerity, because they made that announcement very clearly yesterday that the whole process is going to be tied up to the European semester. For those who are not familiar with the term, that means that it goes hand in hand with fiscal consolidation that is consistent with the fiscal compact, which means that they will give Italy some like 1% of GDP, but at the same time they will take back from the Italian budget, and they will demand austerity from the Italian budget. So allow me to just finish off by saying that if you take both into consideration the money is that will be transferred to the states and the austerity that will be demanded from those states. Take Italy. Italy, in my estimation, is going to have a budget deficit of about 1011% next year. If they demand 5% austerity and they give Italy 1% from this package, the overall effect is 4% of GDP in austerity for Italy. So what happens is that the press celebrates the positive things, right, but it forgets to tell you the austerity costs that it will be imposing in order to grant those positive things. So in a sense from a DM perspective, and this is how I end, same old, nothing has changed. Since 2010, what does Europe do? It announces big sums of money, remember in 2010 the Greek bailout, 110 billion, the Irish bailout, the Portuguese bailout, the bailout for the Spanish banks, the money that was then afforded to Italian banks, big numbers, but all that goes hand in hand with much bigger numbers in terms of austerity programs. That's why I'm saying that the same category error that was committed in 2010 is being perpetrated. In one final comment, because there have been some interesting statements by smart people to say that, yeah, okay, you're right, this is, you know, not worth celebrating, but an important principle has been introduced. The important principle is that we are now for the first time borrowing jointly and mutualizing a little bit of debt. So isn't this a breakthrough, at least at the ideological, no, have we not broken the mold, which says no mutualization of debt. Look, I can see the point, but I don't buy it. And the reason why I don't buy it is very simple. There is about a Euro bond, genuinely mutual debt, the Hamiltonian moment, according to the Americans, when the states, the colonies of the United States, effectively became a federation when they had a common US Treasury Bill, a common bond. These are common debts, common bonds that are there in order to finance the joint projects. Here, if you read the text, it's very clear this is a one-off thing. It happens once. It lasts three years, then it dies. And what happens after 2024 is there a payment, which is joint collective. But once these bonds expire, they are never to be renewed. It's written in the rules. Now, a bond which comes together along with a deadline and a particular policy on how to repay it is not mutualized debt. The United States issued a debt. The idea is you issued a bond and then you issued another one to roll it over and then another one and then another one, an infinitum. And you'd never say how you're going to finance it.  So they are trying to, yes, there is an element of debt mutualization, but there is no use of this as a mechanism for recycling debts and deficits in any sustainable way. So, in other words, it's a fantastic waste of a good crisis. Thank you. Thank you, Yanis. Yeah, me only speaking if there is no woman before me. So I'll give my place if there is someone who is a woman and wants to speak. Come on. No. Okay. I just wanted to add, I mean, I will not give the macroeconomic perspective if I'm not capable of doing it. And we have Yanis for it. I just want to give my personal assessment of the situation and also to start talking about BM's role in this kind of situation. So I agree with Yanis. I mean, the situation is not Greece 2010 and what happened afterwards. Now you have Spain, Italy, many other countries of the so-called periphery. And what I can see here is that maybe it's important to address it, the so-called post COVID situation, which is of course post COVID only for the privileged West, because you can see that the epicenter is now in Guatemala, Latin America, and it's getting very bad. But here, at least in these countries of Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and so on, you can see normalization, which is being manifested by daily politics, which is going back to all the worst things. So for instance, in Croatia, as soon as they start to talk about the Ustasha and the partisans about the Second World War and not mentioning Corona anymore, you know that the situation normalized. In our context, Ivan knows as well, we have elections coming, national elections, both in Croatia and Serbia, which is very interesting because you know also this plan, what Yanis just mentioned here in Croatia is also being presented as a big celebration and so on. But my big fear, and here I come to maybe Advocato's Diaboli and to a question for the CC, is about DM's role in this situation, because as far as I can see on the streets, so-called common people, however we call it and so on, they don't really care about Euro bonds, they don't understand it. For them this is like nuclear physics and so on. So our question is what to do with it. I have some concrete proposals. I think one goes back to what I mentioned already at one Zoom before, which is that we really as DM25 need to start focusing on tourism, because for instance in Croatia more than 25% of the population is working in the tourist sector, and this is just the formal sector. I'm not mentioning the informal sector, which is probably as much as that. And that's an issue I think DM has to start tackling. Another one, and I finish soon because I think we have it in the agenda, is the question of refugees. It's getting really bad here. I guess comrades from Greece can tell us even worse things, but in Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia and so on, the situation is, COVID situation was really used to militarize, to put it like that, the refugee question even more. So I think what we have to do besides campaigning and we can start talking it is the progressive agenda. We have to return to it, we have to see how to include tourism, what to do with the migration pillar. And more generally last point, I think since June is coming and obviously August, part of July, some of us will hopefully, hopefully all of us will have some sort of rest. I think we need to start maybe not at this zoom, maybe for the next zoom, start discussing the plan for June, until the summer break and after it. Because I think everything what Yanis mentioned, this will come back as a boomerang, not immediately, but in autumn. I can see here in Croatia where I'm back, there is still a sort of denial. You know the sun is back, summer is coming, people still hope tourism will be saved, but it won't be saved. So I think that depression and anxiety and uncertainty which will lead to more fascism and radicalization of society will hit back in autumn, September or so. So I would love us to prepare for it in any way possible. I finish here, I don't want to talk too much and I can see Jordy, but. Thank you, stretch good point, Jordy. Thank you. I agree with both of you, absolutely. I'm going to add that this is not just a country problem. It's not Spain against Germany we said it many times, but it's also a problem between big and small. We had an interesting event this evening in Barcelona through video conference with Yanis. It was very educational and it was amazing to see all the social agents in Barcelona agreeing with such a common sense. So maybe in the past, some of these issues were considered radical or extremely different. Nowadays, most of society agrees with what we are saying. They were very worried about the lack of reaction from the European Union. And on the other side, they have a real big problem of disappearance, small and medium-sized businesses, self-employed. The main problem that we have now in Europe, I think, and if this policies goes on is what is going to happen, is that we're going to, the small and the self-employed are going to disappear. They are not getting any help from anybody. And the only solution sometimes they give is more loans. Well, it's not a question of loans, especially big loans, because it's funny that loans, it's obvious that they are thought for big companies. Because the minimum amount of this kind of loans, of public loans in Spain, for example, it's 80,000 euros. Most of the self-employed don't do anything with that.  So what I thought is amazing is Gianni saying all those things and all of them saying, yes, yes, yes, we have such a problem. So what we have to do from the end, I think we have to have an educational role. We have to make people realize that there's another Europe is possible and it just depends on us. And it's not, we don't have to have a burn churches or we don't have to be big revolutionary like 1800, but just common sense. Just common sense. And it's possible. And it's not difficult. So I think we have to have more of these events, especially in the south, I think it's going to be a big impact to realize how easy it is to change things and how, and sometimes Gianni said it, some of the things that we are saying that we should do other countries, even the United States or the United Kingdom are doing some of those things. So it's not such a radical thing. It's just common sense. And I think at this moment the European Union has even lost the common sense. Yes, Eric and Giannis. Thank you, Ivana. I totally agree with Jordi and this point about common sense is incredibly important because the M25, since its inception, was a radical movement of common sense since the beginning. And there is nothing like a crisis to reveal the common sense and radical ideas, right? So it is an incredible window of opportunity for us to present, once again, relaunch, if you like, our ideas in the current context. Not so much be tied down by our history, by the 2015 crisis, the renegotiation of the Greek debt, everything that happened since then, but to really squarely shape our narrative around what is happening now and what is going to happen. It is very important that we adapt to this historical moment. And not only that, because the M25 is not a household name, I think it's very important that we also prioritize what it is that we attach our name to in terms of what we fight for. In order to become known, let me put it differently, it's very difficult to become known if our message is we have a solution for Europe, right? Which is the European New Deal or the Green New Deal for Europe. It's very difficult to become the movement for saving Europe. It's a big thing. But if we're trying to establish ourselves and to become known, I think it's very important for us to prioritize two, three struggles and become the European household name for those struggles. When people think of the universal basic dividend, that is the M25 thing, nobody else. The Green New Deal, very difficult to do that. But there are other struggles that don't have champions. And I think it's very important for us to identify those struggles and become their champions for Europe, especially in this moment. Thank you, Eric. Couldn't agree more. We have Sisi, Simona and Yanis and maybe we should go towards our position in Italy. Okay, I mean, I listened very, very carefully to what Yanis was saying and the other comrades, of course. I'm slightly as skeptical about this new event and I'm referring to the EU. It's not a decision. It's a proposal. I think, to be honest, that the European Union, at first sight, at least, in terms of the public eyes has more or less managed or is trying to blast it over the cracks that has been shown in the past few years, especially with regard to the epidemic crisis when the cracks of the building were visible to the average European citizen. So with this gesture, with this move, the scenario of a crisis that would be structural on the basis of the EU would become a bit more difficult to prove. Because, I mean, not all people are economists. The vast majority do not understand this kind of obsessions which are very well founded by our comrades and Yanis. The vast majority of the people will think that the EU, besides its inhuman austerity policies, somehow raises stuff to the level of a carer for the average EU citizen, whereas we know this is not the case. In other words, the only way to stick on to our sort of alternative agenda is to push the post-capitalism program a bit more. Otherwise, we are caught in this. Given the situation that we haven't got the media with us, the vast majority of the EU people and the Europeans somehow are leaning towards the conservative political powers and representations. Therefore, what we should do in my opinion is to make a version of necessity, as they say, that this be the only ones who could first prove that this is not a long-term solution. I mean, von Leiden's proposal. There are holes in it. It's a short-term solution. And the only solution is a different kind of Europe, not the EU Europe, I'm repeating again. That will be based on the very basic ideas that seem to become common ground for the majority of the people because of the epidemic. That is free and public goods. And the abolition of flexible labor relationships and minority. In my opinion, this is a program in which we must accept. Okay, thanks. Thank you, Simona and Giannis. I totally agree with everything that has been said. I think that definitely we should attach our name to ideas and symbols. These ideas should be concrete proposals. You know, concrete proposal is a mantra for our board, but we should convey the meaning of our program to simple concrete proposals that are possible. And mobilize members about it. Make a call to action for our members on some symbolic campaigns. I push for European universal dividend as a campaign that we should start. Just call to action to promote concrete proposals from us. We have them, and it's much better than asking Giannis to make the AMPENF conference. Because we need to be a movement and not just ask Giannis what he thinks. Yes, of course. We have, I think, enough policies to campaign for another five years if nothing else would happen. But I don't, I think it's the other way around. We should find the burning issue and campaign around it rather than find the policy and combine around it. Giannis. In an attempt to bridge this discussion, the next discussion, I want to mention the questionnaire for DM Italia that I put together. Because that's the whole point. Italy is ground zero of this particular phase of the crisis. The debates in Italy are particularly lowbrow. I was interviewed, an interview of mine was published in La Stampa yesterday. I don't know if you saw it. And actually, you know, I received today some like 300 emails from Italy saying, oh my God, you know, we never thought of that. All I said was quite commonplace things. So the point I'm making is this, and this is the bridge between this topic and the next topic. We'll be discussing now with our Italian comrades the way to organize the National Collective, the role of the electoral wing. What are electoral strategy, if any, should be in Italy. What it is that we should be saying and not saying in Italy or about Italy in Europe, outside of Europe. That discussion when it's done in the abstract is not helpful.  So I try to put together a questionnaire that I want to hear the answers to. Usually the people say that you never ask questions and as you know what the answer is, this is not the case in this case on this occasion. I want to see how are the Italian comrades and also non-Italians in Germany, in Portugal, in Spain answer those questions about what they should be doing vis-à-vis Italy. I'm not going to recite them. You've seen them there in your inbox. They've been there for a few days. But I think that, you know, having a common narrative in Germany, in Greece, in Italy, in Belgium about what happened yesterday in Brussels and the poverty of the European Union's response to the crisis, having this common approach and at the same time saying, OK, what does this mean about Italy? What should we demand of the Italian government? Or what should we say that if we were in the Italian government, what would we be doing regarding A, B, C, D, E? That is the way to combine the analysis with a movement-building process in a country like Italy, in a country like France, in every country. So that's point number one and point number two. I keep saying this, but I'm not working towards it because I'm doing a million other things. But I think collectively you should resolve to work for it towards it, to identify campaigns in Italy that we can all work around across Europe to promote those particular local campaigns in Italy in a manner which is consistent with the process of answering those questions about Italy. Yes, thank you, Anis. Who would like to go next? Maybe Simona, you could give us an overview or Srećko? Yeah, just quickly. I would love to say if we are now moving to the next part of the agenda that it would be important to send a similar questionary to everyone, not just to the Italians, so that we don't turn the Italians into bad apples, but that we actually get the response from everyone, which would be useful just this point. Very quickly, Srećko, look, firstly, there are no bad apples in D or Europe, but Italy is ground zero. Like Greece was ground zero in 2015, Italy is ground zero today, so it makes perfect sense to begin with Italy and not to begin with Ireland. Yeah, that's point number one and point number two. We will do it, but I started with these questions Taylor made for Italy to see if this is a model that we like. And then remember, every country is different, even though you remember the opening lines of Anna Karenina, every happy family is the same. All unhappy families are different or are happy in their own way, so we are unhappy families across Europe, but we are unhappy in different ways. So the questionnaire in each country must be Taylor made. You can't just replicate it and change where it says Italy, you put Spain. Okay, fine. Okay, I think that we have all agreed on that, that the questionnaire should be something for each country. And then we can move to our last agenda topic and that is something Johannes suggested. It's different or Johannes, you can just present the last one. I think we have more than just this one. Yes, but the last one that we will record. Okay, sorry. Yes. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Good. Yeah, it's more of a technical issue, so I apologize to the YouTube audience. But as we are the coordinating collective for the whole movement, we are getting a lot of requests from different members from different countries each day. And sometimes it's hard to cope with it and we have been sometimes failing to answer some, some got lost. So I wanted to propose since we recently discussed the amendments for the, the amendments for the amendments for the organizing principles. And our discussion was very well prepared by units in the restricted forum space of the coordinating collective with summarizing the different amendments for the different sections of the organizing principles. I would like or propose us to work more with this space of the forum to have each proposal or message coming in, not each message, but each, each thing we have to act on to in best case be listed there have a clear name and the deadline if there's a deadline, have a summary with links to the, to the broader comments, or the message of that has been written to us. And as Simone I mentioned before already have a proposal. So something that we should do regarding this message or this proposal for signing a petition or something like that. And yeah, then we could have a better overview and could have a better way of working towards answering actually all the messages that we get. And something additionally very, very shortly, I would propose that we have a standard reply for messages that we get that we kind of don't have to act on but we still acknowledge that has been sent to us. Thanks. Thank you, that sounds good. You did. I think that this could work for the big issues where we need input for from five CC members or similar. And I see a problem more on the smaller side, where we get a message where actually just one CC member has to send a reply, or even an acknowledgement like you said, and we haven't been very good at answering those because we just usually wind up on the CC agenda and they get resolved somehow, but the smaller messages where we really could make a difference. I just don't get the reply. So, I would, I have an idea for that, but maybe I should suggest it by email because I'm not 100% certain yet, but I have some ideas. Yeah, certainly we can exchange some ideas via email before making a final decision Eric. As always looking forward to you this ideas. A quick point on this because we have a call the other day some of us discussing the standardization of certain processes in general, right so also when the CC makes decisions that are national collectors and electoral wings receive information about those decisions mean for them what they need to do as a result of those decisions before they read it on a newspaper on our website right to improve this internal communication. We also said that we need a form that MCs and EWs need to fill out if they have an official request from the CC so that all the information we get looks the same and it's not chaotic and it's not just emails and whatever. And that also ties in with one of the amendments we passed for one of the old member votes from. Anyway, the point here being that processes are good and we are very good at creating them. The whole thing falls apart when manpower comes into it or woman power or person power in any case. The fact that we need people to do these processes, you know, so we can have all of these things but unless we attach a name to the process, it won't get done. And there's very few of us who are doing 500 million things at the same time. So it's good and let's have the emails from you did and let's discuss this further. But please comrades, let's keep in mind that we also need to assign these tasks to people. Otherwise they will not get done as good as the process might be. Just that for myself. Yes, thank you Eric. There is no process that will do the job on its own. We need always to have in mind who is going to do that. I see Simona and then we can wrap up this item and have another one, which is a proposal from the French and see about the old member vote. Simona. When Rosanna came in the CC, I thought of preparing an overview of the works in progress for her and I understood how many tasks we are ongoing and how it's difficult. We often forget something because there are too many and often we have no clear idea of who is doing work. So I thought we should just have a list of them and attach one point person that is not necessarily the only one who works on it to each task and have a constant overview of what's going on clearly. Of course the process needs people, but the process is coordinated and well engineered. The process is exactly what we need to share the load of the work and to have the process go on. So I suggest to have an overview, prepare an overview of tasks at hand and of what we are doing and attach one person to each task. And whenever we came to a decision in a meeting, we established rules taking care of it and we mark it in minutes and in an overview of tasks. Yes, and that's something that we were doing when an ad hoc task would come up at the CC meeting. There would be always to do in the minutes and who was tasked for it. The accountability and the actual delivery of the task also counts. But this info should not be just for the office and we need a list of it. I have no list of it. Yes, sure. Of course we need everything that can improve the communication. I'm just saying that some things were done before. I see Johannes and then maybe we can move on to the last agenda topic for the recording. Yes, very quickly just looking forward to hear what you did has in mind regarding the smaller issues, what the internal firm space would provide would be that list right every issue would have one thread and you would see all the other threads in under one link that you could enter and have this list and that list changing regarding what issues come in and which one we solve and close. But maybe we cannot make a final call on this today and let's move on and discuss via email that you will send. Thank you Johannes and thank you for bringing up this topic. Now we go to Eric and he's going to explain what is this proposal about. Right, so as you know you've received the email and we've discussed it in previous CC calls as well. There is a proposal from the French National Collective for an all member vote regarding the campaign on a rent strike for Europe, a European rent strike. The idea behind the campaign is that we create a document that we sort of circulate. Would you call it collecting signatures? My brain is stuck. A petition, there we go, a petition. So you would create a petition which we circulate for freezing all rent payments when obviously that demand is not met in Europe. We call for a rent strike. Now the argument from the French NC is that on the one hand it would be good if we had an all member vote to agree on having this rent strike because it would increase the sort of exposure it would get to the membership and give it a broader audience. But at the same time it would also give us the sort of the legitimacy if you like to support a campaign which essentially asks people to break the law which is not to pay rent. Those are the two main arguments for having the all member vote from their side. I will not give you my opinion on it yet. That's the introduction and happy to hear your thoughts about how we should proceed with this request. Anyone? Srejko? Well to be completely honest in the last days I didn't really follow it closely. But my concrete proposal would be that instead of an all member vote we actually use the validating council for it. It seems much easier for me. I don't think that we are using the validating council enough. And I don't think that this should go to an all member vote. We could just use the validating council. But that's my proposal. I don't know what others think. I don't see anybody else and I stuck myself. I think that's a good proposal. I don't think that we should use an all member vote mechanism for a campaign which is pretty straightforward. What we could do is move them towards a national campaign and to that way of thinking because this could be very complicated and very ambitious for them to pull off in the first place. And I don't see the reason for all member vote. Simona and yes Simona, I just see. I'm not sure I agree on a rent strike as such but I don't know if this is the subject of the discussion. A rent strike hits the householders and at least in Italy they are often people that have their retirement rent from me. So it's not against big companies. It's against the people that came out a little better than renters. So I don't like it. I think we should ask that everybody has an income to pay his rent, not to stop paying rents. About the all member vote or validating council, I see the point in getting a legitimacy for it from all the membership because we are actually asking them to break the law and it's huge and it requires a consensus from people not just validating council. Apart from that, I'm totally for giving more power and more tasks to the validating council. Okay, thank you Simona. I think Simona has a very good point. It depends on the country on the city on the situation. There are places in Berlin, there are places in London where the, you know, the rents are being collected by large companies, large corporations. But if, you know, you're ending from pensioner who has a tiny little apartment to rent and their food supply depends on the rent, do we really want to support that kind of a rent strike. I think it's, it's a poor policy. I would vote against it in an all member vote. It exposes us to all sorts of criticism. Yeah. And it cannot be pan European, because especially in Greece, most apartments. I mean, I don't know if any apartment belongs to a large corporation that actually rents it out. I think the place we're renting in Athens. I happen to know these people if we stop paying them rent, they're in serious trouble. And do we really want them to come out with a campaign like that. I have much better ideas of strikes payment strikes. I think, for instance, you know, how about identifying an area where the electricity supply is provided by a privatized company. And start a campaign, you know, not to pay the bills for or, you know, something else you can do, which is really not even illegal. You're not inciting people to do something illegal. You ask people to delay paying. So, you know, by two weeks, that's enough to do a lot of damage to that company without you actually being illegal. And maybe we can create also a fund, a solidarity fund where we put some money in there so that the people who get fined, you know, they get the money from from the solidarity fund to repay the fine. But we do damage a lot to that company as part of a campaign to re nationalize water. Now that is a kind of payment strike that I can go I can fall behind. You take some work to identify it, identify the companies for instance, you know, when you have to struggle in Berlin sometime ago to re nationalize or re municipalize the water. It would be wonderful to have this kind of campaign before it is re municipalized. So this is the kind of thing that I am supporting. Rosanna and Eric. I fully support the proposal of the French and see because I think we need an all member vote on this issue because it's quite urgent that we discuss this topic about rent in a transnational way and not everyone in its own in their own countries, or in their own cities. I mean, and we can like design the all member vote as such that there is the option or that we add that only people who who are renting a flat from a big company. They should be part of this strike, but people who are renting a small flat from an, like private owner. They should not. I mean, it's up to them, but the all member vote I think we should do because it's important to have this debate and the whole membership. Eric. Thanks, Ivana. I think this is exactly the problem. I think Rosanna with her in interjection kind of points to the issue, which is that by making an AMV the initiative to have a discussion with trivialize all member votes we completely take away from the institution of an all member vote if we use them just to have a discussion. There are many, many ways in which we can have a discussion. In the forum we can organize a series of zooms, discussions, assemblies, you name it, but to start using and abusing official decision making structures of the movement just because we want to have a discussion on something I think it's problematic and I think it creates a very, very bad precedent from which we'll end up having all member votes and all sorts of things and we'll have 30 people voting at the end because everybody's sick and tired of another email about another vote. So I think as far as that part of the proposal goes, I don't agree. We shouldn't have an all member vote regardless. Now specifically on the campaign itself, we have tried to really, really incentivize our national collectives to focus on their own countries because that is their mandate, right? If our national collective for the M25 in France doesn't work on France, nobody will. And indeed some campaigns such as the red strike campaign might make perfect sense for the French in the French context, but doesn't necessarily always work across Europe. So I don't think we should condemn the idea. I don't think we should have an all member vote either. I think they should pursue whatever campaign they want to pursue. At the end of the day, we should empower our national collectives to pursue ideas that they have as long as they make sense. We haven't seen the particularities of the policy that they are recommending, so it's also very difficult to condemn it at this stage. Perhaps there are certain clauses that they would include in this idea that would make it acceptable. So I wouldn't condemn it at this stage at all. I would encourage them to consider it further, to develop it further. But I also agree that I don't think it makes sense to have an all member vote. Yeah, I agree. I agree, Eric. I see Yanis and Sisi. Simona, is your hand left over from before or do you want to the floor for this as well? No, I want to add something. Okay, so let's have the round of Yanis, Sisi and Simona and then we can close. Look, I don't want Sisi to stop an all member vote taking place. As long as the all member vote is about having the campaign. Not to have a discussion about the campaign, so I agree entirely with Eric. No all member vote to have a discussion. We can have a discussion, you know, as Eric says, whenever if the French NC wants the OK from members across Europe to have a national rent strike in France, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's say, but not in order to start a discussion for God's sakes, right? So maybe we can have a joint zoom with the NC to explain to us, you know, to have this political discussion so that we formulate exactly what the question is that goes to the AMV. That's my proposal. My proposal is that we have, you know, in the next zoom, we bring in the French NC for 20 minutes, brief them that we want to be convinced that they are prepared to go ahead with their rent strike proposal. Okay, and they want the backing, the transnational banking for that national campaign. And then go, let's go ahead with the AMV. But it must be about action, not discussion. Okay. Hands are raising. So, Sisi, Simona, Mehran and Judith. No, simply that I want to say that I find this very, this proposal very interesting on the part of the French National Committee. Very interesting and very radical. But I agree with Eric and Yanis on the way it has to be done. It's important to promote this idea. Yes, Simona. On the merit of the proposal, I would focus on income rather than on paying rents or food or so on. As for water nationalizer, re-nationalized water, in Italy we had a successful referendum back in 2011, exactly about water as a common good and about re-nationalized water softly. So, this could be a very good campaign to do, not paying for water supply. As for all member votes, yes, I think it's not just about having a discussion, it's about deliberation. And all member votes until now are our only way to have a common deliberation. I agree it's not the right tool, but I think we should have some way to reach a form of common consensus about ideas and proposals. Which doesn't mean we are compelled to do what arises from a discussion, but deliberation is not the same as discussion. Last thing, I personally welcome proposals that came from a national level, but make sense at a European level. So, to me it's totally okay for national collectives to make these kind of proposals and suggesting them to the CC and to other NCs. I think that we should maybe postpone this discussion again. And the good occasion to talk to French NC would be our regular NCCC coordination call which is on second Tuesday of the month. So it's very near. I propose that we do that. And if that's it, we can close the first, you did, sorry, I forgot about you. Yeah, and I wanted to say, it's a very bad precedent to have an all member vote about a campaign, because campaigns should be things that anyone could do.  And you just go out and do it. So, I don't think that we should ever have an all member vote about a campaign because it immediately raises the bar for all other campaigns and decreases the spontaneous nature of these campaigns. So if we have an all member vote, it should be about the ethical question of whether we should be encouraging people to rent. But I am actually with Yanis and that it doesn't make much sense to have this discussion on the European level, given the very great difference between countries. And in Greece, we clearly know, and in France, it will probably be clearly yes, just based on the different situation of renting in these countries. I think what we should do, and we should do this before the call with the French and see is to include this in our next newsletter to encourage people to go to the forum and discuss the issue. And also to learn from the different countries experiences and to have this deliberation which they clearly want to have and to have a broader basis from which to plan their own campaign. Yanis. I'm just listening to all this. An idea came to me that maybe we should send them a message to the French and see to other entities, even to DCs and ask them whether they want to propose any particular payment strike. Water strike, electricity strike, whatever payment strike they have in mind, and ask them, you know, and tell them that this is initiated by the French and see that they're proposing a rent strike. And give them, you know, very short period of time, three days, four days max, whoever wants to speak to this is invited to the next CC meeting to put forward briefly briefly a very concrete proposal that they will have to have sent to us before. About a particular payment strike to see what kind of interest there is across Europe from DCs from NC and so on, for different kinds of payment strikes. If the NC from France are the only ones who want a payment strike and happens to be a rent strike. That's fine. And we can we can we can think about right. But let's see let's let's let's feel and I agree entirely with Judith. Absolutely. You're absolutely right. If it's just a question of a campaign just do it. The difference in Mona with Italy was that in Italy at the referendum. And there we had to take a decision as a transactional movement. Okay, of what would our position be, what would we tell people to vote for in the referendum. That's not the same thing as a campaign. I was saying that this is an issue very important to Italians. But we already had this referendum. I know but there was a referendum. This is not a referendum. This is a campaign. So campaigns, you know, should be either coordinated properly or just go ahead and do it and we will support you just because you're doing it. I was saying it will be successful to campaign on it in Italy because people feel this system. Well, our job is to coordinate the movement. So why don't we coordinate the movement? Why don't we ask different NC's and different CC's a CC's the AC's to tell us what they think, whether they have any payment strike generally in mind and then look at it and not in order to tell the French and see how to do it. But, you know, to inform them that, you know, the Italians think this, the Turks think that, the Greeks think that, why don't we just do something that combines the collective thinking of the movement. That's deliberation. That's serious deliberation. The first step. If I can just add my voice to that deliberation, I mean what disturbs me a little is that any payment strike is a tactic. We're putting the cart before the horse if we're asking people have they got any payment strikes in mind. Surely we should start first with the problems that people are experiencing because maybe a strike is not the best way to deal with that problem. So that that's that's how I would further that discussion at this level. Makes sense. Okay, does anybody have anything to add, or we can wrap it up for this part. I believe that anybody who speaks has to pay the price for it. So I think that mechland should script a short, you know, half page letter to DC's and NC's saying there's been a suggestion very briefly it's been suggested for a strike in France. There are other suggestions, you know, counter suggestions that it wouldn't work in other countries, maybe it won't work throughout France, maybe it will. There are alternative payment strikes that we can have regarding, you know, targeting privatized water utilities or electricity companies. Do you do you think that a payment strike of some sort would further the course of dm25 generally and in your country or neighborhood in particular come to us with proposals. Will you do that my friend. I'll bite I won't formulate it exactly like that but you'll see my proposal I'll bite. Okay, well, we can all look at your proposal and react by email.


Hello everybody! So let's talk about if you were planning to open your own teeth whitening practice and it's been put on hold because well we all have to stay home and teeth whitening would definitely be considered a non-essential service. But there is so much that you can do in the meantime. Sorry I can't stop looking at my dog. Her name is Daisy. Say hello Daisy. She was just kind of resting but now she wants to say hi to everybody and look out the window apparently. Anyways so there are things you can do in the meantime. Meaning you can really think about your advertising, your marketing. If you haven't yet make sure to start a page or a group on Facebook. I was actually just talking to my students about this because we're still teaching our teeth whitening course. We were having in-person classes but now it's all online until further notice. But a page and a group are different. A group on Facebook allows your customers or people to post and interact more. A page they can't really post unless they comment on things you have posted. So it's totally up to you what you want to do. As an example my tutoring. I have that as a page just because I didn't know any better when I had made it. But my actual dental L mobile hygiene business. I have that as a group because I wanted patients to be able to interact and you know say hi post things but that's totally up to you. But at the very least you guys that's what you should be doing now. So think of things like think of a good image that you want on like as your profile picture. Okay it doesn't have to be a logo necessarily but it should be professional. Even if you just simply go online and look up teeth whitening. You know pick a stock image somewhere and then have that as your professional timeline photo. Because even if you just simply post something and say yay I am so excited coming soon. And then post a picture of nice white teeth. People will start to wonder like oh my goodness what's coming soon. Post that on your main page on Facebook on Instagram whatever. And then post a link to your either now new page or your group on Facebook that will be specific for your business. Okay that is important because if people don't know you have one they don't know you have one. So when you do open and then when you're set and ready to go to make some money then you can get started. There is no harm in letting people know you are opening up in May 2020 you know or until further notice you know something like that. There is actually a dental hygienist who is opening up her own business and she was supposed to open end of March but that's obviously not happening. But she is still posting updates like when she gets her countertops in when she gets her new sinks in you know because people are watching even if they don't like or comment people are watching. So that's the first thing you should do is take the time to find some good quality images and even make your own logo.  You don't have to purchase anything yet but just sort of make your own save that template and then when you're making some money or when you know at least you are going to open then you can have that right because especially with vistaprint they have sales every so often. Never buy the business cards at full price because they will go on sale. I just had a full class about this with my students actually yesterday where all we did was talk about Instagram and Facebook and vistaprint. So there's a lot to learn. I can leave some links for you guys on the bottom. There's a program that I like to use called Canva. So canva.ca you can pay for it but I just actually still use the free version and you can make your own pretty much anything. Templates you can make your own logos even business cards you can make your own brochures you can make your own everything. So that's a good place to get started even if you just want to start making your own images for like Instagram, Facebook. In fact I can actually show you guys right now because I was just making something. Let me just share my screen. So you guys look so you can literally let's say you want to be more active on Facebook. Search through the different options that they have and let's say oops sorry guys I didn't know that that was going to get big. Let's say you like they all look pretty nice say let's say you like I'm looking for the free one specifically. Okay let's just say you like this one but let's say you're thinking okay these aren't my colors so also think of certain things like for your own business think of your own colors. You want to stand out. I have a whole we actually did a class on on you know how to stand out picking your own colors picking your own themes so that when people see this they will know oh that is her business so that's actually a whole class in itself but let's just say here so let's say you don't like blue you want pink let's say here you want pink and black I don't know there you go okay you can change this up I'm just literally doing this very very fast but you see how like you can do anything let's say you want to change how that looks add different text or what some of it you do have to pay for so just sort of look for the ones you don't have to pay for for now because you don't have to pay for it like if you don't want to let's say you want to pick a different background you guys you can overlay that and yes I have a whole class on this too because it can get confusing change it up change the text again I like to use this feature where you can pick a color there you go let's say you want it to be not as you know obvious more obvious I love this feature quite a bit so there are so many things you can do okay so I can leave a link for you guys there on the bottom just because you cannot open yet I am telling all of my students get ready get prepared advertise because people will want white teeth after this seriously people will be so excited to just get out and they will want to support you because it's your new small business if you need help let me know if you are thinking like oh I would like to start my own teeth whitening course I have a course on that where I can teach you guys how to do it we are obviously doing it all online now there is an in-person component when we can get there and then you guys will be all set but I can leave the link for you guys on the bottom too thank you guys so much for watching and I will see you very soon


Welcome to the CTS Learning Series, Chapter 5, Testing a Non-OSS UOC Example, Video 4, Demonstration of a P-TRIPLE-S Conformance Test. In this video, we will demonstrate how to construct a project configuration file for a P-TRIPLE-S UOC, perform a successful conformance test on a P-TRIPLE-S UOC, and perform an unsuccessful test on a P-TRIPLE-S UOC, and suggest ways to troubleshoot common errors while testing a P-TRIPLE-S UOC. As mentioned in Chapter 5, Video 1, we will be testing BALSA's UOCs. This video in particular will test one of BALSA's P-TRIPLE-S UOCs, called ADSB UNDERSCORE OUT. For more information about BALSA and how BALSA is organized, please consult the FACE Technical Standard, the Reference Implementation Guide, and the Software Suppliers Getting Started Guide. Let's open the project configuration list and make a new project configuration. Let's name it, CTS Learning Series, P-TRIPLE-S Demonstration, and we'll save it in the CTS Learning Series directory. After clicking OK, we are presented with the Project Configuration Builder. For this video, we will be demonstrating the construction of the PCFG, but for more information about each of the options provided in the PCFG, please refer to Chapter 3, Video 4. Let's first select the base directory. I'm going to set the base directory as Home, CTS User. Next, our segment is going to be P-TRIPLE-S. BALSA's UOCs are all written in C++, so we will select C++ as our language. Our profile is going to be Safety Base, as that is the FACE profile our BALSA P-TRIPLE-S UOC is written to, and what we configured the toolchain to test as well. Our partition is going to be POSIX, as our OS does not provide any of the RNK 653 APIs, only POSIX. For our P-TRIPLE-S, we aren't going to use any OpenGL functions. Next, the option to provide the toolchain configuration file is provided. Finally, the UOP name is used to identify the UOP. Let's enter CTS Learning Series P-TRIPLE-S example. In the Data Model tab, let's provide the shared data model location and the UOP supplied model location. BALSA's USM does not have any entity uniqueness or observable uniqueness, so we can leave these options unchecked. We must choose our UOP from the dropdown. In our case, let's choose ADSB underscore out. In the Gold Standard Libraries tab, let's provide the location of an empty folder. We will set this as Home, CTS User, GSLs. In the Objects Libraries tab, we must then supply the Include paths and Include files for the ADSB out UOC. As mentioned before, analyzing BALSA is out of scope for this video. However, each of the header files that the ADSB out UOC uses must be provided in order to check for conformance. The list of included header files and paths are listed on the screen. As mentioned in Chapter 1 Video 1 and Chapter 3 Video 4, there are two methods of testing UOCs for conformance, the Target Linker and the Host Linker methods. We will be using the Target Linker method. This means we must provide object files that were compiled against the Gold Standard Libraries. We don't have the object files yet as we haven't generated the Gold Standard Libraries or built BALSA against them. For now, we'll leave it blank. Continuing down, we are provided an option for providing the factory functions. As mentioned in Chapter 1 Video 1 and Chapter 3 Video 4, factory functions are concrete implementations of methods that allow the CTS to test for implementations of the provided interfaces. The factory function header file is generated alongside the Gold Standard Libraries. So before we can provide the factory function's CPP file, we must generate the GSLs. For now, we'll leave this blank. Now, we select the interfaces that the ADSB Out UOC uses. The ADSB Out UOC implements the LCM initializable and the LCM configurable interfaces. The ADSB Out UOC uses configuration services, generic IO interface and the Health and Fault Monitoring or HMFM interface. Note that in Chapter 5 Video 3, the IO interface options were not able to be selected. This is because, according to the face technical standard, a PCS cannot communicate using an IO interface. All IO interface usage is by the PEECH or BALS. More information is contained in the face technical standard and the reference implementation guide. The notes and project info tabs do not contribute to the project configuration validation or conformance testing, so we can ignore these tabs. We won't use them. We have intentionally left the target linker section and the factory function sections blank. To fill those sections in, let's generate the Gold Standard Libraries by pressing the bookmark icon. After the generation finishes, let's take a closer look at what was generated. In the directory, we can see a list of libraries and a readme file. Let's look at the readme that was generated. The readme lists the valid GSLs that were generated, as well as the associated include directories that should be used to build objects to test with the CTS, including the files that were just generated. Let's take a closer look at those files. If we point to the GSL include directory, we can see the CTS factory functions header file and a face subdirectory. Let's open the CTS factory functions.hpp. Here, we can see the function signatures we must implement in order to be face conformant. These were generated based on the supplied options from the project configuration file. Let's exit this file and look at the face subdirectory. Here, we have the generated header files we must include while developing UOCs. How to use these files are out of scope for this video series, but it is important to understand that the GSL generation process generates these files as well. For now, what we're focused on is the libraries and the factory function headers. Balsa was written to the face technical standard and correctly implements the interfaces required to be conformant to the face technical standard. If you download Balsa from the open group website, it already comes with the factory function implementation that is required to be written. For the purposes of this demonstration, we are going to write the factory function implementation ourselves. Let's do that now by opening a text editor and creating a file called adsboutfactoryfunctions.cpp. Let's include the ctsfactoryfunctions.hpp header file and the header file for the adsbout UOC, which is where the adsbout class is defined that implements each of these functions. Then we'll copy and paste all of the required functions from the header file to the source file and return a new instance of the adsbout class. Now the cts may understand that the adsbout UOC implements each of the required functions. Let's put the path to this factory function source file in the factory function's location. Finally, we need to create our object files. Balsa has a build process that uses make. Although we are not going to analyze the build process, it is important to note that there are two ways of building balsa. One to build for face conformance and one to build without face conformance. In our case, we are going to build the adsbout UOC for conformance. When we build, balsa detects the gold standard libraries to build against. Balsa contains configuration options to provide the path to the gold standard libraries. Before we build, we must make sure the path is correct or else balsa won't be able to find the gsls. Finally, we may enter our build command. Enter make-f makefile.conformance adsbout. Balsa will build and create an object file. The file extension for the object file will be .rel. Let's provide the newly created .rel file in the target linker section. We can now press the test UOC conformance button. The progress bar will fill up as the conformance tests are being performed. Just like the data model conformance testing we performed in chapter four, we are shown the conformance test result with the output file location at the bottom of the interface. It looks like we were successful in our test. In chapter five, video seven, we will open the conformance test report and talk about the results for non-OSS UOCs. Let's intentionally create an error by creating a new project configuration with no options configured. Let's select the test UOC conformance button and see what happens. It looks like the test returned an error because there was no toolchain among other things. Let's press the back button and then the project validation button. This button tests to see if our project configuration is valid and all options are configured correctly for a conformance test. It looks like we're missing our toolchain file as stated before. Clicking on the bottom right icon allows us to view details of the failed test. Thank you for watching. In the next video, entitled Demonstration of a TSS Conformance Test, we will demonstrate how to construct a project configuration file for a TSS UOC, perform a successful conformance test on a TSS UOC, and perform an unsuccessful conformance test on a TSS UOC, and suggest ways to troubleshoot common errors while testing a TSS UOC.