Today we are going to hear about Volvo Car Retail solution about their agile journey and I will just hand over the word to Jonas Sporong and Anders Franz. Thank you so much. I will start with introducing myself a little bit. I am Jonas Sporong, I am responsible for the development and delivery team at Volvo Car Retail Solutions and I've been working with IT, IT related work you might say, I am 96, so fairly old in the game, everything from raiders to cars to IT systems to water meter systems and so on. And I have taken part in two agile journeys and this is the second one on Volvo Car Retail Solutions, which we will tell you a little bit more about. And the first one was at Schenker, but I did a similar thing that we are doing here. So, over to you Anders. Yeah, my name is Anders Franz and I am an agile people coach and part of the agile people core team since a few months back. And I am a consultant since I think it's August 2020 at Volvo Car Retail Solutions or BCRS as we should say. And I have a history mainly in IT kind of joined between automotive and telecom and have been taking part in my role as a consultant I've been involved in a bunch of different agile transformations and things related to agility and customer centric ways of working. I think you will start Jonas since you have been, you represent more of your rest and me since I'm a consultant, you will take the lead in this, in this journey and in a few gaps. You are kind of the co driver for this journey. So, very much so, so let's get started let's get into it. Automotive is, as you probably know, is up for a big change. So we're looking at electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles, and the big chunk of digitalizations. So, everything is changing rapidly. We are aiming to sell more cars to then customer. And what this means is that Volvo is slowly starting to become a software company. And that's an interesting transformation I should say, which is rather fun to be in the middle of. To focus in a bit on Volvo car retail solutions. We have a vision of being 100 that 100% of our users should find our retail solutions easy to use and we aim to reduce the administration time for technicians and sales staff with 50%. And our mission is to create digital enterprise solutions for all of our stakeholders and customers. So, and we will integrate this with all the existing solutions in the Volvo cars global network solutions. So, we say that we are the digital engine. And what we mean with that is that we are kind of the spider in the Volvo car ecosystems. We are the digital engine. And a little bit of the figures, you always should have some figures. In the case. So we are 180 coworkers. We sit at Lindholm in Gothenburg. We have about 50 billion sec flows for our systems. And that's a hefty figure to throw around. And it's because all the car sales for three different markets flows through our systems. We are a subsidiary to Volvo car cooperation. And 200, 240,000 cars are sold for assistance every year. And 1 million work orders are made. Let's focus on our customers. On the greatest map, we could say that we are a global have a global footprint. But you see, there's not that many dots. So, we are only active in three different markets, it's Sweden, Norway and Japan. And kind of a big step there from Sweden, Norway to Japan. We are multi brand we have all vocal star in all four than a couple of other brands that runs is possible to do in our worst systems. As I mentioned, we are in the center of the ecosystem so Volvo finance Renault Nordic Volvo cars are all connected to us and we share a lot of data. That's kind of why we are where we are. The portfolio. If you make it simple, you can say everything you need to sell and to maintain a Volvo car. And a couple of other brands are in our portfolio. So, from customer care to sell the car. Until the wheel change and services the car. And here you see all the names of our different products in the portfolio. But it was in Volvo car retrosolution we should talk about it was how we develop software and how we do that in an agile way. So, our agile journey started in 2016. Some say 2014 but I think the footprint really started in 2016. So a need for change from the traditional project waterfall organization where management spend all the times time management and the percentage of how much work all the developer should do. So you can be Jonas you should spend 10% on doing that and 26% on that and and you see you see the concept. So that wasn't so effective. So we did the reorganization here in 2016. That's why I want to say that we started them. So kind of a classical project setup with a resource optimized mindset. Yeah, definitely. So that was. I talked to my predecessor about this, the self organizing part of choosing new teams. It was a big decision is it was very hard to make it work from the start, but it took a couple of circles and then you will set it out. In 2017, we continue focused on continuous integration continuous delivery, we set a target, which was 750 g five, which doesn't say anything for anyone outside of this data solution, I think, but g five was a milestone in our, in our process. We said then with this target that we should be able to deliver software 750 times a year, instead of three to four times which was before. So this was, yeah, this was a stretch target, but you get there eventually. In 2018, we realized that the developer organization was, yeah, basically throwing the software over the fence to to the operation organization. Not really, but you get your, I think we get the concept. The developer team wasn't really managing the operations of the other software they have built. So it was a bit of a friction between them. So we started preparing the organization for DevOps culture. 2019 we moved R&D together. So, and started delivering in a DevOps way instead. We had a rather strong team feeling with a flexible mindset and we, we hit 500 g five mark and during this year, which was good. I will show you a little bit of figures about that because it looks like this. Approximately roughly 500 releases. So you can see my pointer here. And I'm up with map this against the major incidents, which you can see in 2016 we have about 100 major incidents, so rather rapidly delivery to be honest, and three to four releases in 2019 we had only 20 major incidents and over 500 releases. So that's, it looks great doesn't it, more than 500 releases and only 20 major incidents. So, so why do we stop here? So what was the main reason for the major major incidents going down that rapidly was it related to the new ways of working I guess and maybe also related to the more frequent release schedule or it was a combination because when you, you make three or four releases a year, it's very hard to test everything. And we have test cycles that run for three or four weeks with all our stakeholders, maybe I should say customers instead of stakeholders running tests and we have several different databases and everything has to look the same and so it was very easy to make a mistake. We used that complexity with the frequent releases and of course we made a lot of effort in writing clean code, writing code, automated testing, release pipelines, those types of stuff was implemented. So reducing the scope of each release and making it more often, making it less of a big bang result in positive figures. Yeah, that's really well done. Yeah. So what we didn't stop here. So we saw at the end of 2019 that we still have something that slows us down and increase complexity. So. And the observation I joined the company around 2020 yes not was during the COVID pandemic which was a challenge of course but gradually we started to get a picture like this that the agile transformation was maybe done it's quite quite often the case is my experience that you, you want to build these autonomous teams and you focus very much on the teams as such, and then try to kind of turn the pyramid the classical pyramid that we all know and are used to upside down a bit too quickly. And I think that this needs to be a journey. So the observations around 2020 was that we had lots of teams and they were trying their best to work in an autonomous agile way. But there was a lack of alignment so these teams moved in slightly different ways so in a radically different ways different directions. And also the observation was that management was a bit confused in that because we often heard that but it's up to the teams to decide and then management sketch a bit lost so what is my role in this, if everything is up to the teams what what is my role here. And I think the same confusion from the team side as well because teams really need some management support. So it's, it's, I think that that is too big step too quickly from the old way to the new way often result in this kind of confusion is maybe a bad word but lack of alignment and difficulties, tensions. I think still today we are. Sometimes it's very hierarchical and sometimes it's the complete opposite. And it's not always very clear who has the mandate to decide what and how do we actually take decisions I think that's one of the things that we observed then and still observe that takes a lot of time to actually reach decisions and other decisions we make are they actually valid. You can always raise your hand and say that this is not valid unless you have a defined process for how we take decisions or who has the mandate to take decisions. So I think that what we what we need if you move to the next slide you must I was trying to switch myself here but I noticed you're the one who is presenting. So what we wanted to do around that time was just to kind of move back a bit not to build a system for which this pyramid can stand upside down. We need some kind of structures and some kind of system to support the agility and autonomy that we at the end want to build. When I joined there were a role it was a role called chief product owner. And but it was not fully implemented the mandate was not there and and it was, it was more or less on trial on us. It was tested to have to see if that role could fly. It wasn't really manifested well in the organization it didn't really fly so we we reinvested in those roles to kind of build this alignment between the teams, not as a dictatorship was more but more as a supporting function to to make sure that we start to align these teams. And there was also an investment made before I joined into putting all these different teams backlogs into one big backlog connect these backlogs to make sure that we had a portfolio the same priorities. So that was kind of the first step towards building a more structured system in which these autonomous teams could realize their work in a better way. So, and you can, you can show them the last animation as well there. So, again, we need to or we think that we need to build these temporary structures that enable autonomy so that we can be more agile and move faster. So we're trying to take a step back to the middle pyramid here, where management typically take part in changing the system and gradually turning it upside down by building these temporary structures, for instance, how do we take decisions in a in in the upside down pyramid what kind of system is needed to support that way of working. And we are somewhere in between here right now I would say. So, what I mean with this picture is that management need to take a big part in in this transformation it cannot only be up to the teams, and we cannot only be focusing on the direction up to the right. On the right side here we see that we have management team and they have a compass and road ahead and some stars that they want to to move the organization towards. And that requires an organization that is mature enough it's like team maturity you know you have this, if you believe in the Susan wheel and stuff then you know that you need a situation leadership to handle the team, depending on what kind of they are in. And the same thing goes for an organization so we need to have the right kind of leadership in throughout the organization and throughout this transformation or this agile journey. And at the bottom I have one of my favorite people Edward Deming to quotes. It's not enough for management to commit themselves to quality and productivity, they must know what it is that they must do such a responsibility cannot be delegated. And that kind of sums this up I think the previous picture with the two pyramids one the classical one on the upside down that you cannot just cannot just delegate that you need to take control of that journey to gradually build a system where you let go of control. And the others quote is, people are already doing their best the problems are with the system and only management can change the system and I think that is very true. We want to be in the right side of this picture where teams are autonomous and they can take lots of positions by themselves because that is much faster. But in order to build the prerequisites for that environment, we need management to know the system and to change the system gradually. And I think that is what we're trying to do now get more management involvement, understanding the system, noticing the tensions and acting accordingly to gradually move back to an autonomous company, autonomous teams that have the environment where they can act as we want them to act. They're kind of limited today, depending on that the context they're in doesn't allow for that. So just a comment there. Bear in mind that we're starting from a point from 2019 already had done a lot of things but the pendulum swings swing a little bit too far to the autonomous teams. So, but the results is still there, we still can deliver this every, every, every time we want and all the delivery pipelines and automation is still there and working. And the teams are still working so we are trying to enhance the machine to say even more. That's what we're doing with this tipping or tilting the triangle. Yeah, and I think there are, there are this results our current situation around 2020, there was quite a lot of tension in the organization because of this, and quite a lot of ways that we'll also move into so so try to eliminate that waste by building a more supportive system. So 2020 we continue to focus on the temporary structures as I showed in the previous picture by building a guiding team and if you're familiar with safe the scale agile framework there is a similar setup there called the lace team. So that is kind of a centralized way of trying to take big steps in a structured way to change the system. The guiding team needed to have strong sea level executive support so it's very close to the company board that is the top management of vcrs. And the mission for the guiding team is to continuously map out the current situation and the wanted position in the company and then make controlled small experiments in line towards the vision or the wanted state. So typically we gather all the tensions we could find in the company, main value stream mappings as we can see to the, to the bottom right here to map out what the system currently looks like, and then try to identify the most wasteful or the most tension intense structures we have, and then try to change the system in a controlled way and also measure what is the impact of this change that we're doing, did it actually help or didn't it help. Because we're in this complex environment. So if you have a data cannibin the cannibin framework, you know that you can't really pre plan that much, but you can have a hypothesis about what you think you can have a hypothesis about what you, what your actions, most likely will result will result in and then you have an inspected behavior also for change management. And another step we took was to implement portfolio management and that is very much centered around these roles the chief product owner roles. Since we have two value streams in the company to make major value streams, we have decided to have one for each value stream. And it also made sense we thought to have these accompanied by a chief architect to is very much. Guarding the technical aspects of the solution to make sure that we don't build additional technical debt because that has been the case for quite some time, depending on this lack of coordination between the teams. We also have an important role in this management. We also have a representative who's more has the business hat, and more of a customer a major customer context like a key count management role, you could say. And we also have a representative from the company board the top management team. And the, the role of this portfolio management is to coordinate, align these different agile teams to put together the portfolio strategy, the roadmap for the portfolio, and do that in a supporting way so it's, actually this is temporary structure we don't know currently it's needed, is it needed in two years or five years time we don't know we shouldn't have this structure unless it makes sense and today it makes perfect sense. I think the interaction of this change has come with a lot of benefits we come closer to to key stakeholders and talking about the right things. There's a separation between the company board, more now focusing more on the company's strategic long term issues have the portfolio management together with POS and teams focusing on the more technical product portfolio oriented things. And of course we need to have these continuous handshakes between the company board and the portfolio management and down to the teams or out into the teams depending on how you, you see the world. We also have the supporting functions down to the right because this is we see that the value in the company flows in this direction in the teams coordinated by my portfolio management and on the strategic level coordinated by the company board and then we have the strategy relations finance departments people department and engineering management that also support with a situational servant leadership. And we also have a few that's it's, we haven't made that many communities of practice yet we have one for the team coaches, grandmaster team coaches, and we're about to start up for architecture as well so so that is the more community based open ways of cooperating in company. Next one. And this is just a snapshot from the valley stream mapping that we performed about a year ago I think. And this is a way of mapping events between and start of an order until that software in this case is run out in for the customer. And then we could see that were there were quite a lot of long wait time dependencies between teams very many dependencies between team that made it difficult to have a high flow and short lead time. So this was kind of an eye opener I think we knew that there were lots of dependencies but through the valley stream mapping we could see how much it was. And then take that back to the guiding team that we had up and then started to focus on the next step to because we thought that this dependencies between teams that is something that really is really wasteful. So then we decided to take the next step on us. Yeah we did. Let's see. So dependencies dependencies we have As I said we have a lot of dependencies in both in the organization and also technical wise and architectural wise so we decided to focus a bit on that and as you have my time every dependency doubles your chance of being delayed or late. We can easily see that by trying to book a dinner for 10 people and agreeing on a date and a place to be to see that dependencies are not so so easy to fix. So we said, let's try to do the main driven organization and the main driven architecture. The benefit of that is that as you see in this picture, we have several red cars, red volvos and in our architecture today. We can, if you search in one system you'll get a certain type of data and if you search in another system you get another type of data, and you have a lot of dependency between the systems and between the markets and so on. So we said, we want to aim for domain driven architecture. And why not organize our own build an organization according to the same principles. So, organize them in different domains. This kind of a reversed way of thinking of Conway's law. So, hence the domain driven structure. In this picture we have mapped out, see where my point is, we have mapped out the big processes, sales to order order to deliver and deliver to repurchase and then a neighbor block on top of that. And all these little bubbles are different domains.   This is kind of a way to think about organizations in ways of connected toward architecture, they will drive each other. So, we have implemented a couple of these bubbles, especially for sales and service, the core structure is currently, we're kind of currently building that part with customer and the vehicle and organization and so on are the bubbles where he's up in that in a box. The thought is that each and every bubble should have their own way of taking responsibility for their chunk of information, their own part of the process or the customer journey or how you want to slice it. So, clear interfaces, clear architecture structures and clear communication lines to stakeholders or wherever you need to communicate but is they can have complete control inside their bubble on what needs to be done. This is precious down the decision making and so on inside that. That's the thought. Our next step then, what do we do during this year we will focus on domain driven architectures and strange in the strategic process and introduction and work are okay. Okay ours that was hard to say today and improving the backlog structure. That's maybe. That's what we will do during this year. And the main driven stuff will continue a while, I think. And the strength and strategy process and interaction of okay our subjectives and key results are tightly connected of course and that's part of separating what was before. I mean the company board was very much involved in the actual portfolio management as well and that came a bit messy and maybe lacking long term strategic thinking so. So, one separating those or splitting them apart at least a bit with a bit different hats between portfolio management and company board that enables the possibility to have a longer scope in your strategic thinking and more focused strategic way of working. So we are elaborating or thinking about elaborating with introducing objectives and key results as a way to to put those strategic themes into action more or less within the organization. We plan to do that in a structured way, starting with a small thing and making that work in the organization and building understanding and awareness of why and what and how. And then gradually grow that way of working with objectives. Yeah, and also the improved backlog structure since since the backlog is kind of the veins and to say the spine in the company you could say what we saw is that the current backlog structure is kind of different sized bunches of work stacked on top of each other. And we think that each level in a backlog structure structure should mean different thing or less to build this cooperation between teams to have a. The strategic investments as part of the backlog for instance different parts of the company taking ownership for different levels of the backlog. So wait once again to build a structure within the company. And what comes next. We think, as I mentioned the domain, the main driven architecture will continue for a while. I mean, you don't rebuild the system that has been running for 30 years in a year. It will take a while, but the thing with it is you can do it in in small chunks. You have to speed up the decision making. We probably set some kind of goal for that, like decisions should be made in two days or something like that, regardless of the decision. And of course, shortly time and feedback loops. But we really don't know. I mean, that's next year, we only got halfway through this year so we will see. So, we are here learning so far. It is for us. It's a continuous year and a not the project. I mean we could easily stop that 2019 and being rather happy. We'll reach the gold and gold almost. I mean we're way beyond it now. But we saw more, more stuff needed to be done to be a really be fast and flexible. The importance of leadership. I mean, leaders are the only people in the organization that can change the process and organizational structures that you talked about. So they are important. Just as an example, honestly, the introduction of portfolio management. We are changing the system and making that team quite clear about the mandate and the boundaries they have. Now they can manage their own improvement work within that bubble. They are changing the system, letting go of control and building autonomy in that group and that is the gradual approach that this guiding team is working towards to to gradually changing the system and making it more autonomous but in a structured way. Yeah, definitely. I want to elaborate a bit about the word leadership. It's not only the formal leaders. We have more leaders than that in organization, product owners and team coaches and and architects are also type of leaders. But if you want to change the system, it might be necessary for the formal leadership. But that's more important than you might think that's our learning from the structure we had in 2019. Common clear objectives. I mean, you need to do to know where to go. Leadership scaling is very important. I see that if you have a manager who has 3040 employers under them, they don't have the time enough time to spend on each employer, and they really don't have the time to do improvement work. So, so a good scaling. And that means for all the leadership in organization. So product owners and team coaches and architections so on, it need we need to free time to be able to do this. And that's, that's rather hard, because you don't see the benefit from the start you can't measure it in in money right away over in time. So it's, it might be hard to convince management board that you need to focus on this. So to improve. You all have seen that picture with a man or drags a wagon with square wheels. I think that has been mean for the beginning of this year, really to visit to improve, but we get we get around wheels on the wagon eventually I think. I mean, I'm at the workshop today, where we focus a bit on how what can we stop doing and what do we need to start to and stop doing is under discussion and start doing is for sure to spend more time on this improvement. Continuous improvement stuff. Improvement culture is the topic of our list here. And I think actually worked on McDonald's for a couple of years, and they had saying that was clean as you go. Which means don't leave anything.  And that for me is the improvement culture. If you always think of something you can improve and you have that in as kind of the DNA in the culture in the company. You get a lot more done without kind of spending lots of time on rebuilding projects, build a bigger redesign projects and so on. So that's something we need to encourage the organization. Pre one pre one. If you focus on one thing at a time or at least few things at a time, then it's much, much faster. It's so easy to spread out your organization over where it's in or as like a thin layer, and you get nothing done. You get coordination and you're, it's like stuck in the mud. So that's, that's what we're trying to do with this particularly management and the common backlog and so on. And the last one is hard to work agile in a way, you know, in an ideal way in a non agile world. Our stakeholders and our situation is not really that agile as you want to be. I mean, it's the car industry. It's not that we have been doing this for 100 years. It is happening now for sure. And as you started to say you must the automotive industry is in this very interesting and rapid change. So I think that we in this area could take a big part in highlighting the ways that we see because of the non agile approach from context we are in. I think that's something to focus on in the future as well to lift that up to stakeholders to see to promote the benefits that the more agile mindset approach could have. Yeah, and of course they are, I mean, I realized that my statement was like they are dinosaurs but that's not what I mean. Well because are changing in big ways right now. So we have done a change a couple of years ago and they are doing it right now when we started a maybe a year ago and something like that so they are. They and us are the same I should say. So we will learn from each other the scale is much grander if you boarded 180 people. So that's the way do we have lots of interesting questions. I think we have a few ones in the chat but we can encourage everyone to. You can either ask questions because or you can put them in the chat. But I must say interesting journey you have in many ways you have come quite far I would say. But we have one question here. Maybe you answered that, but did you add all teams at the same time or gradually adding more and more teams to the value streaming. I mean in 2016 we did this big change where we basically split up the company into big chunks and sales and service. So, and then the team members got shows, whatever they wanted, which team they wanted to be. It was like a grand bazaar where the product owner stood and sold their product and people went and talked to them and gradually we set that framework there. And then, if the question was more for the domain. The domain architecture that we are doing now we are gradually implementing it, but from the structure we had before so we had kind of a base. It was set for a couple of years back and now we are splitting up those team in smaller boxes will be will be more autonomous, but we have a clear scope and a clear interface to each other. So that's against that answer the question I hope so. Great. I'm not sure if it clarifies but in the domain driven design initiative, we are moving teams from product teams to design to to domain teams gradually. That is what we're saying. Yeah. Thank you. I hope you can see and hear me now. Yeah. Thanks for a very good presentation. I was just going to ask about what the employees say about this how is the employee turnover and so on. Are you an attractive employer because of all this. I should say, yeah, I think, yeah, I think we are we had during the beginning of this year we had a bit of a higher retention rate because of the year two years before the corona thing. Then we have almost zero people leaving us for a couple of years and before that we have rather low retention rate I should say. I can't really measure this quarter because we are a bit tired right now so but before that I should say we are an attractive employer. So people like to work for us and we hear that from our consultants firms also. Yeah, it makes perfect sense it seems like like so. Yeah, but we could also say that we have frequent questionnaires where we follow the satisfaction of the employees and these changes that were presented have been very well received. The big one with the portfolio management has really made the life starting to make the life easier for product owners and for teams and we're gradually building a much more aligned way of looking at the future. Also this domain driven design is also very well received because each team is really struggling with all the dependencies so it is well received I would say. Of course it's always changed it's always changed right so so it takes some some time to get used to it and do it in a structured way but I think it's for good. Thanks for the answer. Yep. Great. We have one from Farhand. Are you following safe in this journey because he kind of thinks he hears the similar thoughts. No, we are not following safe and that has never been the approach and don't think anyone at VCRS thinks that safe is the big silver bullet of anything safe is contains lots of nice ways of seeing the world and there are good parts in safe but you also always needs to adapt the framework you use depending on the context. And I think we don't see any use for for kind of the big picture safe at VCRS. First we have the portfolio management part. It's inspired by parts of less and parts of safe and part of other frameworks out there so it's kind of taking the big picture, the big, the best pieces from from different frameworks and different experiences, we have from from our perspective and trying to fit that into what is best for VCRS right now right here so now we're not a safe company, safe oriented company. Thank you. And then Elena asks, what has been the bigger challenge when you face when it comes to reorient company cultures towards agility. That's a good question. I think, if I may, Jonas, I think one of the challenges is actually that we are in non agile context. So stakeholders interact with us in a more classical way. And that puts us in a situation where it is possible to always adapt that agile mindset I think it's it's been long before I started. When this journey started I think that that the large majority of the organization has been introduced to the agile mindset and it's it's quite it's well received and it's in the heart and soul of most employees I would say, but the context makes it difficult to to to act on that. Yeah, you're right. I mean, the question we have from the stakeholders is, when is it done and how much will it cost. And that's, that's a bit hard to answer. In an agile organization, so yeah, I agree. Yes, with us. He was with us at the start of the journey for this years. He might have another answer for how it was in the beginning. Any, any more questions. Yeah, we have one from right now. How much is the new ways of working align with product development and manufacturing and logistics. 100% software company. So everything we make isn't manufactured should say it will be delivered right when we wanted. So, I mean, if we had a cycle of if we were making software inside the car, I guess that the logistic and alignment with the production would be more interesting but I mean, when a developer has written a line of code and it runs through the tests, we can push it out in production in most other cases. Not all, not everything. We still have a big chunk of Oracle databases and stuff that which can be updated in real time. All our microservices and everything we're having national is kind of simple to do and that works really well within an agile mindset, I should say. I'm sorry, I answered the question. Did I? I hope so. I hope so. Otherwise, I'll ask you to rephrase it. I will answer it again. Thank you. How is agile mindset implemented into the financial control with governance. That's the same answer as previous we already know the non agile context and the financial part of that is, is not that agile as of now. Yeah, I should say that's the next speed bump for us. Yeah, and then Birgit has a comment. I don't know if maybe you want to say it. Yes, sure. So, I can imagine what what you said with the with the last comments, especially also with the classical waterfall approach a few years ago, and also the financial contractual part because I've been working on a supplier website for different we see us. Yeah organizations around the globe to develop the global e2e solution for for used cars. And yeah this was also from a contractual side. A massive piece of paper to get this master specifications and also racy metrics and and all that and that was also far. Yeah far away from an from an agile approach also to develop product or platform like this and yet it's great to see that VCS is has now made such a great journey what I saw since 2016. I imagine that you started it in in Gothenburg that there's some other VCS organizations around the globe will follow a similar approach. Yeah, yeah, definitely.  That makes the journey a bit easier, and if you're situated across the globe with the people working from Finland and Norway and Switzerland and Australia and that will be a handful I guess to get this working. Thank you. What would be your suggestion to a team that wants to work agile but has dependencies to other things that work more waterfall based with Bing bag releases. There are two ways, actually, and one is the classical one of trying to to promote your way of working. The benefits of that and try to affect and change people who are most likely to change. That is one way that's kind of bottom up and then of course I think that for real change to happen it's back to the leadership and management support to make sure that make those changes together. So both convincing management with the benefits and continuously or in parallel trying to convince those teams to try to see that the benefits of your new way of working now. Thank you. And then Mattias brought to call Mattias all very broad comment and maybe you Mattias want to say something. Hey, what I heard Jonas mentioned my name while I was cooking lunch but I really didn't browse the discussion before so. Okay. Yeah, makes it difficult to answer. Yeah, I understand. I saw your name. I thought it was to say hello. Yeah. Hi. I'm curious about the journey and it's really nice to see that the journey continues and a lot of a lot of the things that we discussed in 2019 and 2020 are ongoing and happening. That's great. I think that picture I showed from the results actually you made that wasn't it. Yeah. Yeah, the data graphs there. Yeah. Great. Do we have any more questions than Jonas or Anders and they lost comments from your side. Maybe, maybe this. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time to listen to us and do if you have anything you want to ask or think about afterwards. Give us a call. Then I also say thank you a big thank you to Jonas and others I think it was really interesting to hear about your journey and as I said earlier I think you have come a little bit further than then than Mike, I thought you had so so it's really nice to see. Thanks for everyone to attending. We will have a short summer break and we will be back in August with these meetups and stories from reality. So thanks everyone for now.


Hi everybody, I hope that you're doing well and welcome back to Plants and Lucia. My name is Lucia and today we'll be talking about humidity for our houseplants. Okay, coming up. So, why do we need to increase humidity? As you know, many of our houseplants come from the tropics. Tropical environments have very high humidity, so they're a costume to this. It is recommended that we keep humidity between 50 to 60% where we have our houseplants. Now, if you think about it in the winter when we turn on our heating systems and heating vents, the air in our homes becomes drier and it can even decrease to 40% or lower. This is not good for our plants and it's also not good for us. Really low humidity levels can cause nosebleed as well as dry skin or irritation. So, even for us, it's good to maintain humidity levels between 50 to 60%. So now, let's see how we can measure the humidity in our homes. So, we make sure that our plants are happy and we are happy. The way that I measure humidity at home is by two ways. The first one, I use this humid style. This is very useful and very easy to use. So, as you can see, it actually shows the temperature in the room and the humidity level. And with this smiley face, it tells me that that's ideal. So, we want to keep humidity between 50 to 60% not higher than 70% because this can cause mold and it's too humid and not lower than 40%. The second tool that I use to measure humidity is our humidifier right here. I really love this humidifier because I can actually set the level of humidity that I want. So, I can set it up to keep the room at 55% humidity and it will only produce humidity when it feels that the room is at a lower level. So, let me tell you a combination of ways that I use to increase humidity around my plants. The first tip that I'm going to share with you is a very easy one. In laundry days, instead of drying your clothes in the dryer, just put them on our back close to your plants. So, as your clothes dry out, the water is going to evaporate and this will produce a little bit more humidity. This is great for your plants and it is also more environmentally friendly than using the dryer every time. The second thing that you can do to increase humidity for your plants is to place all of your tropical plants together. This is because through the process of transpiration, water evaporates through the leaves. So, if you put all of your tropical plants together, they will help each other with humidity levels. Of course, if you have tropical plants that really like high levels of humidity, I recommend that you invest in a humidifier. So, we have this one and I really like it because of different reasons. Let me show you. Okay, you guys, so here is our humidifier and I really love it for different reasons. First of all, as I told you before, you can actually set up the humidity level that you want. So, right now it is at 61%. Then you can actually control different things here. So, here is where you decide how high you want the humidity. So, for example, here I can set it up at 60%. Here you have the mist level. So, it has different, I'll just put it a little bit higher so you can see. It has different levels, one, two, and three. Then over here we have the sleep button. So, that means that when we turn it on, the light is off. Here you have a timer so you can actually set it up by hours. If you want it to be on by three hours, one hour, four hours, whatever, you can just set it up here. Another way to increase the humidity for plants is to make a humidity tray. So, this is really easy. All you need is a tray and some pebbles or rocks just like here. And then what we do is we put some water inside the tray and what we want is that the water stays just below the top of the rocks because we're going to place our plant on top of the rocks and we don't want the plant to be sitting in water. On top of all of these things, you can also mist your plants. And this is because misting the leaves of your plants is just like the process of transpiration. So, you will have some water on the leaves and as this water evaporates, this will create humidity. Now, the next strategy I really like because it actually serves also as a decoration method. So, if you find some bowls or pots that you really like but don't know how to use them, you can actually put some water in them and you can place them around the house. You can also place these bowls with water on top of the radiators or heating vents. So, the water will evaporate and create more humidity. And the last tip that I have for you actually comes from Harley G and this includes the use of pots that are really pretty but we don't know how to use them. They may be too big for our plants or they may not have drainage holes. So, for example, for me, I really like using pots that have drainage holes but sometimes I find a pot that is really pretty. So, let me just bring one to show you how you can use it. So, here we have a pot. It's actually really beautiful. It's handmade but it doesn't have drainage holes. So, what we can do is actually add a smaller nursery pot inside, upside down. Then, we will add some water all the way just below the top of the nursery pot that is inside this one. And we will add our plant on top of that nursery pot. So, the plant is not touching the water but we're actually localizing the humidity inside the pot. This is a great way to increase humidity for one plant that really likes high levels of humidity. And what I would recommend is that you change the water every week or so. Do you have any other tips to increase humidity for your plants? Please make sure to comment below so we can all learn together. And as always, I will see you in the next video. Okay, ciao!


From the conversation, this is Don't Call Me Resilient. I'm Venita Srivastava. We're welcoming of refugees when we know who they are and we can decide who we're going to choose. We're not as welcoming when people spontaneously arrive and exercise a right that's protected under the Canadian law but also international legislation. By now you've probably heard of Roxham Road, the rural road in upstate New York that ends at the border with Quebec. And it's made headlines because last year about 40,000 migrants arrived at this unofficial border crossing, most of them hoping to find their way into new lives in Canada. Last Friday US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met and amended the Safe Third Country Agreement to try to put a stop to the flow of migrants there. Under the original Safe Third Country Agreement, both Canada and the US could reject asylum seekers at official border crossings. But there was a loophole. People who crossed at unofficial border crossings, like Roxham Road, could still claim asylum. With this new amendment, migrants can now be turned away at unofficial border crossings as well. The change took effect almost immediately, causing all kinds of confusion and trauma. But the issues at play with Roxham Road and this new amendment are larger than any one single border crossing. Here with me to get into it is Christina Clark-Kazak. She is an associate professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and her research specializes in the study of forced migration and refugee status. She joins us from Ottawa, the unceded Algonquin Territories. Welcome Christina. Thanks for having me. So today we are talking about the amendment of the Safe Third Country Agreement. But can you take us back to when the agreement was first struck? What was the idea at the time? So the original agreement was negotiated in 2002 and came into effect in 2004. And at that time it was actually Canada who wanted the agreement. The Canadian government for many decades, like many rich countries, is trying to prevent people from being able to get to Canada to make an asylum claim. And so most of our refugee claimants actually come up through the US. And so at the time the idea was to try to stop people from being able to make a claim in Canada by sending them back if they came and made a claim at an official border crossing. And the US government didn't have a lot of incentive to agree to this because obviously this means there would be more claims that they would have to process in the US. But it was just after the September 11th attacks. And so the US government was worried about security and they felt like this would be a way to securitize the border. There's been a lot of talk and attention on Roxham Road right now. It's partly because it's this loophole for irregular migration. But what's the spotlight about? So the reason why there was so much attention to Roxham Road is because the Trudeau government, they set up a sort of unofficial official border crossing in the sense that people knew if they went to Roxham Road immediately after they crossed. There was an RCMP and CBSA officers who were there who would process almost immediately the initial claim. They don't get their claim immediately, but they're getting into the system to then make their claim. And so this became an issue between the Quebec government and the federal government because if most people are coming into Quebec, that means the provincial government is then responding in terms of healthcare, education, all of the provincial jurisdiction. And also because it was concentrating people within a very small part of the country when obviously the border stretches across. The Premier of Quebec called publicly. There was an open letter to the Prime Minister to close Roxham Road. And then the leader of the official opposition also stepped into demand that it be closed within a certain period of time. So this then made headlines and this put pressure on the Trudeau government. Was it because of that political pressure that that's why we're seeing this amendment now? There's always been political pressure and this renegotiation happened about a year ago. In fact, they were signed in 2022. So Trudeau has sort of had this in his back pocket for a while. So there was an agreement in principle, but it hadn't actually been put into practice. But the change of heart from the Biden administration basically came because there have been in recent weeks some more claims coming in from Canada. So there have been some people who have crossed from Canada into the US. And this became a political problem for Biden because some of the Republicans were saying that he didn't have control over either border because obviously his focus has mostly been on the southern border between US and Mexico. This was a way for both of them to solve a political issue at the same time. What's your opinion about this amendment? I think it's devastating. If the purpose is to solve irregular migration, this is not going to solve it. In fact, it's going to push people further underground. Canada likes to promote itself as a country that promotes refugee rights globally. But it effectively it cuts off a major way for people to be able to claim asylum in Canada. So it really erodes this right of asylum, which is protected both by domestic law but also international law. And the other thing that I think is really unfortunate is there was a lot of secrecy around this. There was no indication, there was no consultation with all the civil society organizations who really are the ones who are providing the services to refugee claimants. And it came as a surprise to everyone and they closed the border within a matter of hours. So some people were already on their way up north, you know, and they had no communication. There was no information and some people literally arrived a few minutes too late and the border was closed and they've already invested all of their life savings to come up to Canada and now they couldn't cross or they would be sent back to the U.S. If we could just for a moment think about who is at Roxham Road. If we were there like before this weekend, who might we see trying to cross the border? So this is a really good question because I think a lot of people think that people who are making their way to Canada are coming from Latin America. And in some cases they are. But actually Roxham Road is a sort of microcosm of global displacement. So you'll have Afghans, you have Congolese, you have Haitians, you have people from Latin America, from Venezuela, from Mexico, but you also have a lot of people who are coming indirectly. So people who have landed in a South or Central American country and then who have made a very long journey all the way up. And this is because of externalization policies. So Canada as well as most other rich countries in the world are trying to prevent people from coming to Canada to make an asylum claim. And so we introduce for example visas. So in order to get onto a plane, you need to be able to have a visa and Canada basically requires a visa from every refugee producing country in the world except for Mexico. And even with Mexico there's an on and off visa policy. The need to apply for a visa is an externalization process. Right. So externalization is basically any kind of policy that tries to extend Canada's borders administratively beyond the physical borders of Canada. So already Canada is very difficult to get to because of our geography. You know, you either have to fly here, come by boat on a very long journey or come by road from the US and further south. And so the visa policy effectively cuts off many, many would be refugee claimants because visa officers as soon as there's any indication that someone would make a claim will just simply refuse that visa. A second externalization policy are what are known as carrier sanctions. So these are fines that are given to transportation companies. So primarily airlines in the case of Canada. So this is why when you go on an international flight and you're trying to get back to Canada, the airline will actually check to see whether or not you have a visa or appropriate documentation in your passport. And the third element of the externalization policy is the safe third country agreement. So now basically it's even more difficult if not impossible to come here. So I should mention though there are a couple of exceptions to the safe third country agreement. So if you're an unaccompanied minor who does not have a parent or guardian in the US, then you are still allowed to cross and claim asylum. And if you have a close, like immediate family member who's in Canada and who has status in Canada. So who's a citizen, a permanent resident, a protected person or who has a claim that is in process at the immigration and refugee board. That's another exception. But if you can see these exceptions are very narrow. So if you have no family member here and you're not an unaccompanied minor, you're going to be turned back. So when you said that about minors, I just kind of I had this sort of visceral reaction because I feel that, well, what's going to happen? I mean, what do you think is going to happen now that the Roxham Road is closed? I mean, what are some of the options now available to migrants? You mentioned a couple of exceptions. Do you think, for example, that we're going to see more unaccompanied minors as an example of some of the things that might happen? So we've already seen some increase in unaccompanied minors. It's possible that some families, because they're trying to spread risk, might send someone because they know that minors are an exception under the Safe Third Country Agreement. However, once a minor gets status in Canada, they cannot sponsor their family until they turn 18. So that would be almost permanent separation from their family. And even once they turn 18, they then would have to demonstrate they have the financial capacity, et cetera, to sponsor. So that's not really a viable option. But what is definitely going to happen is that people will turn to smugglers to get across the border because in the past, it was quite easy, especially at Roxham Road, which as I mentioned, was this sort of official, non-official point where you know you could cross in safety and you could immediately get into the system to make a claim. So people will be now crossing at places that are not so visible, that are in the forest, places that are further from an official border post. And they'll need to know how to navigate that. And so they will be turning to smugglers. We know this because this happens on the southern border between the US and Mexico all the time. And the second thing that's going to happen is it disincentivizes people from making a claim. Because if they know they're just going to be sent back to the states, but they have some reason for being in Canada, whether it's, you know, a connection to a community, whether it's because they speak French, whether it's because, frankly, they just don't feel safe in the US. You know, the US has a gun control problem. And so what's going to happen is they're going to come here and they will not make a claim. They'll just go underground. And this is really not a solution for anyone. It actually is going to increase irregular migration. If the policy objective here is, which is what has been officially stated, is to try to reduce irregular migration, then this is not the policy response that we need. What we need are more official channels to be able to make a claim. So it's not really a sound policy. It really is more about politics than it is about trying to find a policy solution to the problem. So speaking about politics for a minute, I believe a lot of Canadians may understand that migrants are coming here for a better life. But I know that you've pointed out in some of your writing that as a country, we actually have a role to play in why people are leaving their countries. Can you give us an example or one or two examples of this? It's a really good point because I think the Canadians feel very removed from the reasons, the sources of migration. I work with people from the Democratic Republic of Congo and I've worked for a very long time in Congo, but also in some of the neighbouring countries with Congolese refugees. And one of the main reasons why people are fleeing Congo is because recurring violence related to resource extraction. So at a very simple level, most Canadians own a mobile phone. Within a mobile phone is Coltan and the Democratic Republic of Congo produces a significant percentage of the world's Coltan. So indirectly, by participating in the sort of global economy, we're involved in that. But more directly, there are Canadian companies who are in Congo that have been accused of quite serious human rights abuses within mines and other companies. What does this amendment tell you about North American attitudes towards migrants? So I think that many Canadians and North Americans fear spontaneous arrivals. There's a there's a fear of the unknown. There's a fear of people coming across the border in a spontaneous way where we don't know who they are. We don't know where they're coming from. We don't know why they're coming here. We don't know when and exactly where they're going to cross. And so this causes fear. And I think that, you know, some of the politicians are tapping into this fear. The other thing I would say about the genius arrivals is that because of the externalization policies that Canada has put in place, it is almost impossible for people to come here through a regular route. Right. It's almost impossible for people to get a visa, to get onto a flight, to come here to then claim refugee status. Most of the people who do that are people who are here in Canada and then the situation in their country changes. So, for example, we have international students who came from Syria and then civil war erupted in Syria, and then they claimed asylum. Or you were an Afghan woman who was studying here as a post-grad and then the Taliban came into power and then you claimed asylum. It's almost impossible to get here through irregular official channels. But people have this notion that somehow people are doing something wrong by coming irregularly. So even in my discussions with, you know, neighbors, people in faith communities, people in schools, there's this sort of fear, there's this feeling that, but why don't they just wait? Why don't they come through official channels? And I think that people don't realize there are no official channels. Basically, there are very, very few official channels. Also that under international law, but also under Canadian law, you are not required to come through official channels. There's something called the non-penalization principle, which actually allows people to flee because we realize that desperate circumstances call for desperate measures. The 1951 convention was put into place after the World Wars, but particularly after World War Two. And if we thought about people fleeing the Nazis, for example, many people used false documents or hid or got smuggled across borders. You know, I think that people have to understand that just because someone is doing something that is administratively irregular, so using a false passport or crossing at a non-official border crossing. First of all, it is not a criminal offense. And second of all, it is sometimes necessary because of the desperate circumstances. I'm just thinking about what you're talking about, which is that fear. You talked about the anxiety and the fear that some of the folks that you've spoken to anecdotally. But I guess also through your research, you know that these are some of the attitudes that people have. How much do you think this has to do with white folks in Canada feeling this anxiety about being replaced? So there's definitely a racialization element to this. And we can think about this in the contrast between the attention and the discussion around Roxham Road, which involved around 40,000 people in 2022. So in the global scheme of things, these are very small numbers. We compare that to what the public opinion was in relation to Ukrainians who came to Canada. OK, admittedly with visas, but under a very generous and liberal visa policy, we had about 150,000 in 2022. And the war didn't start until March. So we're not even talking about the same time period. And the magnitude is obviously much bigger. Under the Ukrainians also, there was no cap. Yeah, just as I saw that it says that the number of people who can be approved in that program is unlimited. Exactly. So the Canadian government is basically saying any Ukrainian can come to Canada if they wish. And they've waived the visa fees. They've waived some of the biometrics for certain categories. They waived the COVID requirements when those COVID requirements were still in place for everyone else. And the way that Ukrainians were welcomed into Canada, some provinces were bending over backwards to attract them, especially the Atlantic provinces. I'm not suggesting that this shouldn't have happened. What I'm saying is if you contrast that with the redaction to Roxxham Road, it demonstrates the racist elements that are still apparent within Canadian society, but also within Canadian immigration policy. So if we look back historically, Canadian immigration policy has been blatantly, explicitly racist. We can cite multiple examples like the Chinese head tax for some of the immigration categories which were based on race. So we introduced a point system within the economic streams to somewhat address, at least partially, those very explicitly race-based immigration categories. But there definitely are still decisions being made that are racialized. And I think it's important for us as Canadians to have this discussion and to think very carefully about why certain categories of people coming from certain areas are welcomed with open arms and other people were effectively just slamming the door in their faces. And most people who are coming up, what was at the time, Roxxham Road now across the border, are racialized. They're people from Latin America, Africa, Asia. They're not typically white Ukrainians because white Ukrainians could come in through official routes. And so this is the distinction that needs to be made between understanding that some people do have official routes and channels and others have no other option but to come irregularly. We are welcoming of refugees, but I think that we're welcoming of refugees when we know who they are and we can decide who we're going to choose. I think we're not as welcoming when people spontaneously arrive and exercise a right that's protected under the Canadian law, but also international legislation. So what might happen to migrants if they get sent back to the United States? So we already have some evidence of this because during the COVID-19 pandemic in the very early stages, effectively the refugee border was sealed and people were being sent back. So we know, for example, that they're much more likely to be detained than they would be in Canada. So Canada also practices immigration detention, but we do so at a much lower rate than the United States. The United States has a huge immigration detention infrastructure. And so many people become detained in that, including children and families. And the Biden administration has recently hinted, in fact, that they're going to restart some of the family detention policies that were under Trump. So that's one concern. The second concern is around deportation. So again, because people are detained, it's much more easy to deport them before they've had a proper hearing. And in the U.S., there is more of an expedited process by which people can be detained. The third thing I would also say is that some refugee claimants are much less likely to be successful in the U.S. than in Canada, for example, gender-based claims, but they tend to have a lower rate overall. So you're much less likely actually to be accepted as a refugee in the U.S. than in Canada. And so this then means that you're going to have people who are denied refugee protection, where they would have otherwise had refugee protection and then subsequently be detained and or deported. It's very sad. I vote down detained and deported. It's very hard. Yeah. And again, I think we have to acknowledge that Canada also detains and deports. And in fact, our deportation rates are going to skyrocket now, because basically what happens now, if you enter into Canada and you want to make a claim, when we say sent back to the U.S., it's deportation. And in some cases, that deportation is quite aggressive and violent. People are handcuffed and shackled if they think they're going to resist. So that is problematic. And it's also very costly. It's not only problematic from a human rights perspective. It's also actually very expensive to detain and deport people. And again, we could be putting those resources into the refugee claim process and allowing people to work and getting them into Canada. You know, it's kind of ironic that at the same time as we're closing our border, we've recently announced a 1.5 million over three year immigration targets. So Canada clearly needs people in Canada, I mean, from an immigration perspective.  They still have capacity. They still are human resources. In fact, many people who get all the way to Canada are often quite highly skilled. So they could be contributing to the economy, but instead we've decided to invest our resources into detaining and deporting people instead of allowing people a pathway to safety. So one of the things I loved about reading some of your work and getting to know a bit of your research and also your news articles is that you have this great approach about here's what I think needs to happen to make things better. And given what you've just said, can you provide a few things that Canadian government might be able to do to make things better? I mean, I think in an ideal world, the safe third country agreement would be scrapped altogether, but I think realistically that's not gonna happen. I think that unfortunately the Supreme Court will rule that it is constitutional. The Trudeau government has clearly invested a lot of diplomatic and also political capital in making this amendment. So even though there are currently protests actually outside of Trudeau's constituency office in Montreal and across the country against the amendment, I think unfortunately it's going to stand. So I'm quite a pragmatic person. So I sort of think, okay, given this unfortunate situation, what could we do to at least make it somewhat better? I think the first thing is there needs to be communication to people who are trying to make decisions about whether or not to come to Canada. So because this was announced late on a Friday afternoon, it came into effect almost immediately and the government has actually not really made very many official communications about this. So if the whole point is to prevent people from coming here, they need to know what the scenario is and that has to also be available in languages that people will be speaking, coming from different refugee producing areas. I think the second thing that needs to happen is that the Canadian government needs to think more carefully about the exceptions. So currently there's unaccompanied minors and there's people with close family members and a couple other sort of minor exceptions. But there is also a provision in the safe third country for what's called public policy exceptions. So this is where the government can decide, okay, we believe that certain categories should be protected and will be allowed to claim asylum in Canada. And so I think that the government should be using these public policy exemptions to include categories which would not be accepted in the US. So for example, if you're making a gender-based claim, it's very unlikely that your claim will be accepted in the US, whereas Canada tends to include gender and sexual orientation and gender identity. So under the UN convention definition, you have to fear persecution because of race, religion, but there's also a category of a particular social group. So Canada has widened that to also include gender-based claims, whereas the US generally does not accept those claims. So I think that the Canadian government should allow this as an exception because if you're turning them back to the US, they're not going to be accepted in the US, but they would have been accepted in Canada. So this is just one example. I think the other thing that needs to happen is that the government has to realize that some people will go underground. I mean, again, we know that. We know that from the Southern border with the US, we know that from the Mediterranean, any place where you have a border that's securitized where people are not allowed to cross, you get trafficking and smuggling and you get an underground situation. And so the government is going to have to invest resources into actually combating some of that now, which is unfortunate because basically those resources could have been put into allowing people to claim asylum. So last question because I feel sometimes overwhelmed when we're talking about this is so big and we're talking a lot about what we think the Canadian government needs to do. Is there anything, and you don't have to say yes, there is, but is there anything that we can do as individuals that we can do to help make things better in this regard? I mean, I think the first thing that people can do is to become better informed because I think politicians get away with these kind of policies because in general, people don't vote on immigration issues. They vote on domestic issues like healthcare, education, things that matter to them individually. But if we demonstrate to politicians that this actually matters to us and that we're well informed and we understand the complexity of the issues, I think that they're going to have to respond. And the second thing I would say is once you are informed, advocate for people who are not citizens. I mean, this is one of the problems with democracy, right? Is that you have to be part of the demos, you have to be a constituent in order to then have access to the elected leadership. And in most cases, refugees and migrants are not citizens and so they're disadvantaged in terms of the lobbying that they can do. So I think this is what people like ourselves who are citizens, we can demonstrate allyship by saying, okay, I'm a citizen, this is important to me and I'm going to take the time to write to my MPP or my MP, also city counselors because a lot of the services actually are provided at a municipal level. So even before this came into place, there are undocumented individuals who are trying to access things like health services, education, et cetera. And in many of those cases, there are sort of don't ask, don't tell policies that have been put in place because of advocacy by citizens for those. So I think that that's something else that we can do. The other thing I would say is get involved in organizations. So we have a number of non-governmental organizations across the country who work with newcomers at various levels. So something like the Canadian Council for Refugees is an umbrella group. You can go on their website. You can see their members in your local areas. It's not about necessarily giving money. It's also about giving time and talents. And as I say, to be engaged in these issues and show that you care and that you want to understand more because I think this is what's actually going to shift the needle. Because ultimately, as we mentioned at the beginning, this was a political decision. So if the politicians realize that it's not popular, then there might be some change in the future. I like that. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. I know that we're coming to the end. So I just want to say thank you so much for joining me today. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for having me. This has been great. That's it for this episode of Don't Call Me Resilient. I know that was a lot to take in. And I don't know about you, but that conversation with Christina Clark-Kzak left me feeling charged up. It was great that she actually left us with some small steps that we can take to help make a difference. Why don't you write to me and let me know how it landed for you. I'm on Twitter at Write Vanita. That's W-R-I-T-E-V-I-N-I-T-A. And you can tag our producers at ConversationCA so they can join in. Don't forget to use the hashtag Don'tCallMeResilient. If you'd like to read more about the episode content, go to theconversation.com. We have more information in our show notes with links to additional stories and research. Finally, if you have news stories that you'd love to hear us cover, we'd especially love to hear from you. Email us at dcmr at theconversation.com. And if you like what you heard today, please tell your friends or a family member about us and don't forget to leave a review. Those ratings let others know that we're worth listening to. Don't Call Me Resilient is a production of The Conversation Canada. This podcast was produced in partnership with the Journalism Innovation Lab. The lab is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The series is produced and hosted by me, Venita Srivastava. Vokey Saisi is our producer. Ali Nicholas is our assistant producer and student journalist. Jennifer Morose is our consulting producer. Our audio editor is Ramatula Sheikh. Ataka Kaki is our audience development and visual innovation consultant. And Scott White is the CEO of The Conversation Canada. And if you're wondering who wrote and performed the music we use on the pod, that's the amazing Faki Ibrahim. The track is called Something in the Water.


Good morning, this is rich from rich to be live a good afternoon. Good evening depending on where in the world you are I have some breaking news for Montoral Montoral receives ni 43 one-on-one report on Wichita North BC Canada Rare Earth Element Re-projects is breaking news. It's just off the presses Wichita North Re project British Columbia International Montoral Resources IMT in Canada further to our news release of April 11th 2019 has received the ni 43 one-on-one report on the Wichita North Property located in the Caribou Mining Division BC and joining the well-known Wichita Rare Earth Minerals Discovery the company contracted Robert A. Bob Lane of Vernon BC to complete the ni 43 one-on-one report. He is the geologist conclusions and recommendations Mr. Robert Bob Lane Reports the property has the potential to host and should continue to be explored for rare earth element remineralization because it occurs within a favorable geological belt known to contain carbon at it hosted re-mineralization such as main zone on the Wichita Defense Metals Corp property located approximately 10 Kilometers to the southeast Although past exploration of the property was minimal covering only the northeast part of the claims it did identify several geog geophysical anomalies and one Geochemical anomaly worthy of follow-up therefore a comprehensive phase one exploration program consisted of reprocessing and reinterpretation of the airborne geophysical data and 3d inversion modeling currently being conducted by Campbell and Walker Geophysics limited of North Vancouver BC Prospecting and bedrock mapping and rock silt and soil sampling is warranted and recommended The report titled Wichita North Rare Earth Element project by Robert A. Bob Lane Plateau Minerals Corp dated April 26 2019 will be posted to Cedar and to the IMT website at Montoro resources Com ASAP You can see an image Right there Wichita North helicopter born aero tem survey 210 electromagnetic response the claim broke block comprises for continuous MTO cell claims that cover approximately 1,444 hectares of which a portion of the claim area was previously flown in 2010 by aero quest when previously owned by IMT it consisted of 654 line kilometers of aero tem helicopter born time domain electromagnetic electromagnetic plus Radiometric surveying flown at high resolution 50 meter line spacing Bob Lane has extensive experience in this area as he previously managed the adjacent Wichita 19 hole drilling projects in 2008 and 2009 for spectrum mining recently assisted the compilation of completion of a 41 NI 43 101 technical report for first legacy mining now Defense Metals Corp on the TSX dot V under the symbol D E F N This is the 43 101 disclosure Robert a Bob Lane a Qualified person as defined by national instrument 43 101 has reviewed and approved the technical information above in this news release The financing the management of the company is recommending completion of a BC super flown through Financing so exploration can commence as soon as the seasonal road access is open and property conditions and accessible are accessible for sampling and are recommended and the recommended work program an Announcement is forthcoming upon TSX Venture Exchange acceptance of the property acquisition agreement This is huge news. This is breaking news 43 101 has been issued and that is like gold Okay, so I wouldn't be surprised to see some movement here for IMT about international Montoro Resources Inc in February 2019 Montoro entered into an acquisition agreement with various vendors to acquire claims in the caribou mining division British Columbia and is proceeding to exchange approval on the Wichita North claims 1,444 hectares adjoining the well-known Wichita rediscovery Montoro will continue to focus on advancing its 100% owned Serpent River Elliott Lake Northern Ontario Peck whores magnetic anomaly a potential Ni It's got this joining the well-known Wichita discovery Montoro will continue to focus on advancing its 100% owned Serpent River Elliott Lake Northern Ontario Peck whores magnetic anomaly a potential ni coup See you PGE discovery The southwestern portion of the property has located uranium Remineralization from previous drilling in the general area where Rio Algon discovered uranium the property comprises 10 mineral claims 115 units or approximately 1,840 hectares in February 2018 Montoro received approval for the acquisition of the Dunhemel Quebec property The NIC you code prospect consisted of nine mineral claims comprising 500 hectares Additional staking of 32 adjoining mineral claims and Compiling of data has been underway since February and the expanded property now totals approximately 2,300 hectares and prospective for titanium vanadium and chromium in addition the company owns jointly with Belmont Resources Inc. 5050 its cracking stowed 982 hectares 2,427 acres uranium properties in the uranium city district Northern Saskatchewan and is seeking a joint venture partner to continue development of this advanced property This is on behalf of Gary Musil president CEO and director of This Montero Resources Huge news breaking news love to know what you guys think about this news This is the type of news that Anyone that's investing in resource companies likes and this is the type of news that a lot of investors in International Montero resources have been waiting for so I'm gonna continue to research this I'm gonna continue to do more due diligence Stay tuned. I am looking to actually have them on the show later today I'll keep you updated on that so as soon as we go live and we do the show It'll be around 8 a.m. Pacific time I would like to speak with one of the representatives from International Montero resources about this breaking news So stay tuned. I'll let you know when I'm live probably around 8 a.m Pacific 11 a.m. Eastern. This is your boy rich from rich to be live International Montero Resources with breaking news. It's true. What do you guys think? This is your boy rich from rich to be live And I'm oh peace Montero receives ni 43 101 report on Wichita, North, BC, Canada rare earth element re project, it's true


Why study money? Few economic subjects are more tangled or more confused than money. Debates abound over tight money versus easy money, over the federal reserve system and the treasury rolls, and over how to deal with the financial crisis. Perhaps confusion stems from humanity's propensity to study only immediate political and economic problems. If we immerse ourselves wholly in day-to-day affairs, we cease making fundamental distinctions or asking the really basic questions. Political tribalism, amplified by the instant gratification of social media, can allow us to completely consider practical limitations to our desired ideological goals. This is particularly true in our economy, where interrelations are so intricate that we must isolate a few important factors, analyze them, and then trace their operations in the complex world. As always, it is the objective of a good economist to not simply analyze what is seen, but to compare it to alternative possible outcomes. Of all the economic problems, money is possibly the most tangled and perhaps where we most need perspective. Money, moreover, is the economic area most encrusted and entangled with centuries of government meddling. In fact, most that are considered experts never think of state control of money as interference in the free market. A free market and money is unthinkable to them. The result has been a century of central bankers increasing their power over society, decade after decade. Historically, money was one of the first things controlled by government. Manipulating the currency was always one of the easiest ways to extract revenue from the public, allowing the state to spend and control far more than they could through taxation alone. Now, generations of Americans have only known a global economy fueled by fiat money from any commodity backing. This complete politicization of one of the most important tools in human society has directly resulted in devastation and human misery to a degree many can understand. As Congressman Ron Paul has noted, it is no coincidence that the century of total war coincided with the century of central banking. We will also see how many of the alleged failings of a capitalist economy raised by critics on both the left and right, the result of markets is now, but of the socialization of money. So it is high time that we turn fundamental attention to the lifeblood of our economy, money. Can money be organized under the freedom principle? Can we have a free market in money as well as in other goods and services? What would be the shape of such a market and what are the effects of various governmental controls? If we favor the free market in other directions, if we wish to eliminate government invasion of person and property, we have no more important task than to explore the ways and means of a free market in money.


Welcome to the channel. This is reliable Rudy Today we're going to fill a viewer request for Netflix. Thank you for the viewer requests I very I really appreciate the request and makes it easier for me to decide what video I'm going to make next so if anybody out There has listened to this video has a ticker that they want me to do an analysis on I'm more than willing to go over any ticker and share my opinion more than likely I probably don't have an individual holding on it. So you'll get a non-bias view From somebody I feel I feel I have a decent understanding of the process that I like to go through Maybe it doesn't work for you. Maybe you don't agree with it, but it works for me So if you like that point of view, I'm more than willing to give that point of view Now I have not looked through any of the financials here But I do have a couple points that I want to make before I dive into some of the financials But before we do any of that I'm not a licensed financial advisor Everything this video contains only my opinion and it's for entertainment purposes only like I said, I have no individual holding in Netflix I may own it in my index funds. I probably do But nonetheless Just sharing my opinion have nothing to gain nothing to lose So going into this first thing I want to state I just I this was the first thing that came to my head when I was making when I am starting this video on Netflix Netflix Started off their business as a rental business. They've rented out DVDs and they were not a very successful business But ultimately they were one of the first to get into the streaming and they They killed it. They they they timed it. Well, they they changed the game in terms of Streaming and they've definitely benefited from that. No question about it, but this is a very highly competitive space Netflix does not own the brands that some of their competitors own they have to pay for their content now They do have original content produced by Netflix. No question about that, but I have this pulled up right here These are all the companies that they pay For content look at this They have to pay for this content and then find a way to distribute that to make money It's not like like like for instance, I made an analysis on Disney Disney has all kinds of brands that they own They can share those brands through their streaming services and it does not cost them a thing Netflix has to pay for all of this Keep that in mind Now next we're gonna go into some of the financials Okay, revenue. They are profitable net income. Here's their profit margins Increased profit margins here today. I definitely want to go check in on that because the stock price is definitely hammered So that I'm already a little bit confused that they have increased profit margins from their five-year average But it's more than likely that from years 2017 up to before COVID They're probably unprofitable and they probably benefited from COVID a lot and that's probably tweaking some of their five-year numbers as well but I'm definitely gonna have to go look into the profit margin now gross margins 40% really not the greatest I mean, it's all right But price of sales matching up to those that gross margin and profit margins Yeah, I don't know seems still a little bit a little bit high to me now five-year average free cash negative 862 million so this already kind of leads into my statement that you know from 2017 to the 2020 they probably weren't doing that good as a business But nonetheless they are positive free cash flow year-to-date The other thing is the disconnect and PE so this is a big disconnect and PE coming off of the years 2020 and 2021 where they probably benefited in some sort especially with I would imagine with their revenue their revenue probably definitely benefited but the disconnect right here is telling me hey, there's probably decreased revenue and You know, how is that going to go moving forward? Especially being in a very highly competitive space increased interest rates and Yeah, that'll that'll lead me to some of the debt But going over more of these metrics negative return on assets now They do have a return on equity now this has to do with the shareholders that are investing into the business issuance of shares and Buying back shares. This is how it so they do a very good job of that But that but looking at this huge drop right here first thing that's going to go to my mind is How many shares did they dilute up here? If they if there is a massive share of dilution up here, then I'm definitely Just going to be turned off by this stock more than likely But we are going to check in on that the last thing that we want to look at is the return on best capital They over the last five years that they have not invested their capital very well and year-to-date, you know Nothing's really changed Before the last five years did they invest their capital? Well, you know, I don't know I'd have to go look at that So we will do that But yeah, nonetheless, you know a couple red flags are popped up here originally. So now let's take a look this eight pillars Okay, only only three percent shared. I wish I thought this number was going to be a lot higher We are going to go check in on the shares. Maybe they've been buying back shares before this Maybe they bought some shares leading up to COVID. I don't I don't know but Five-year average free cash flow is negative So we are going to have to touch base on the debt and go check that out and match that up to what type of free cash Well, can this company put up and then how much long-term liabilities? Do they have? We will touch base on return on best capital in this if if they don't invest their capital very well That doesn't necessarily mean okay, stay away from this business. Some companies just don't invest their capital really well That doesn't mean the company itself is bad But they do have revenue growth. We that is definitely going to be a one-two monitor and the net income growth Okay, the same thing with the five-year free cash flow price of free cash flow Their free cash flow five-year number is negative So we are gonna have to touch base tie in the debt free cash flow and all that stuff together. Oh Yeah, interesting. So let's start with the shares outstanding because this is this is a big kicker for me Uh, we are on quarterly let's switch this to the last four quarters Okay, so not too much share dilution, but right here did have some share dilution Pretty consistent share dilution actually been not not overly too much like I said over the last five years three percent It's not terrible. They could have I'm telling you guys They could have issued so many shares up here and you think this drop is bad Man if they issued a ton of shares up here this this drop is nothing this would have dropped underneath a hundred bucks if I had to guess It looks like we got to a low of around 174 if they issued a ton of shares up here, man, this would have tanked But nonetheless always got to keep in mind of the shares so Let's switch it to a quarter and see if they're starting the buyback shares not this price is down here Okay, so they're still issuing shares from this quarter So even with even with the decrease price down here guys, they're still not buying back shares They're still issuing shares so you got to keep that in mind this stock price is tank this much and This leads me to believe without even looking at anything that they're still struggling to find ways to pay debt So they still have to issue shares to find ways to pay that debt or else I mean what else are they gonna do if they if they have negative free cash over the last five years and year to day Only a hundred and sixty million they got to find ways to pay off their debt I mean they're gonna have to continue issuing shares when they issue even more shares if they aren't able to bring in free cash Low this is not the bottom Just gonna say that right now, and I haven't even done nothing with anything with the stock analyzer tool This is not a bottom if they have to continue diluting shares crazy to be able to pay off their debt So the next thing okay, this yeah, so they're still issuing shares But nonetheless, let's look at the revenue now. I can already see it's starting to decrease you can see massive increases Especially the year 2020. I mean we jump from five billion and we're now the next year From five from five point seven billion over seven billion. That's pretty good revenue growth Now you can see decrease revenue growth right there for sure and this isn't really that much It costs a good solds. Okay, cost of good solds is Going down from this year, but now it's starting to go back up higher interest rates And they probably have to charge more I would imagine or they're getting charged more by the people They're buying content from guys remember they're buying content from all of these guys These guys if their costs go up they got to charge Netflix more as well Or Netflix is gonna have to ultimately make a decision. Do we want this content? Do we need to cut this content? I mean there's so many things that go into when you're buying all this content from all these guys Okay Netpro net income. Let's check that. Okay, so Still growing that they are net income profitable. So now this leads me to think Net income is positive, but they're they're free cash flow is is borderline negative That that's all automatically going to strike a red flag for me So let's go check out the free cash flow before we look at the debt So I can see free cash flow last four quarters. Okay, so this has part of that 2021 year positive free cash flow All right. No, we're on quarterly. Okay. Oh, so quarterly. So yeah, oh my gosh I'm one quarter they drop this much in free cash flow and from this quarter they go from negative 570 million to okay got a couple acquisitions in here and it leading up to that no acquisitions at all is it possible that that Netflix is in the crosshairs right now and They're saying themselves. Yeah, we got to figure something out. Let's let's go look for an acquisition to maybe Generate something or maybe we can branch off that in some way shape or form So it's very interesting. No acquisitions leading up to this point and now they're starting to make acquisitions. I Would 100% make sure you go look into these acquisitions because there that is a little bit fishier Right there. I do not like that Let's switch this to a four quarters and see Yeah, guys look no acquisitions at all no acquisitions at all and now they they got to figure something out Okay, let's go make an acquisition. I Can guarantee that this is part of the reason why why Netflix dropped is because people seen okay They're they're starting to make an acquisition look at this changing net the capital expenditures right there. Oh my gosh Look at this increase in capital expenditures guys. Oh my where where are these capital expenditures going? You got to make sure you know that when you have a large increase in capital expenditures like this. Oh boy and Sure enough the 2020 year Here's the COVID year last four quarters This is part of that COVID year the second the third and fourth quarter of 2020 leading into this 1.4 billion in free cash flow now a huge decrease guys That that is a huge red flag there is no consistency in here and like I said leading up the COVID negative negative negative negative is This going to be a sustainable business going forward I'd net I haven't even looked at the long-term debt, but I can almost promise you that it's not going to look pretty Let's go look at the long-term debt. Oh boy Let's switch it on a we'll just keep it on quarterly Long-term life 19 19 billion dollars in long-term liabilities guys They cannot sustain positive free cash flow. They are in trouble. They are going to have to dilute tons of shares tons of shares they're gonna have to dilute and That is going to tank this stock price in my opinion I probably don't even need to do a valuation on on Netflix one It's going to be very hard to understand how those acquisitions are going to drive revenue to highly competitive space three Rising interest rates the people they're buying content from are probably gonna have to charge them more Netflix is gonna have to probably cut content and That is going to weaken Netflix as a company While their competitors have the content to be able to put on their streaming services Yeah guys this to me everything strikes a losing formula. I Would 100% watch out with this company Now I could be wrong in my analysis. Maybe I maybe I'm looking at something wrong But this I mean to be consistently net income right here and then the free cash flow negative negative negative negative negative negative negative The one year they have positive one point three nine billion is Corrweighting part of that COVID in year where there was lockdowns people were probably at home all-time low-interest rates Sitting there on a stimulus check living the dream Didn't feel like going anywhere because they felt financially set and Then boom huge decrease right here guys This this is not a winning formula and you can already see the acquisitions. They're making this is Yeah, not not impressed whatsoever. I thought I was actually gonna see a little bit more decent financials in this but this man And I feel bad for the people that are investing up here that didn't did that didn't see this coming because Me personally, this is not the bottom. This is going to keep dropping It's going to keep dropping now based off a charting aspect. This could end up getting a retrace, but you know Yeah, watch out with this one guys That's that's that's how I'm gonna end the video. I hope you guys enjoy the content if you disagree with me You know, I'm sorry for my my blunt opinion But nonetheless, it is my opinion. That's how I would play play Netflix probably just stay away from it And I'll see you guys on the next one


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