Hello, everyone. I'm Maureen Haker. I'm a senior lecturer at University of Suffolk. I teach in the education and childhood streams, but I've also been digitizing and reusing qualitative data with the UK data service for, I think it's about a decade now. So I've got a fair bit of experience as well. This is an introductory webinar. So we're assuming that you have, you know, a little experience with all of the delights held within the archive. So hopefully this is a good jumping off point for you. So, let's go ahead and get underway. So this is an overview of what we're going to cover today. I want to say just a little bit about the broader picture of the UK data service. So you know where all the qualitative and mixed data fit within the bigger picture. I'll also give some examples and details of some of our best qualitative and mixed methods collections, just to show you how they've been used in quite creative ways. I'll also cover how to find an access qualitative data. And I'll close with some tips and resources and places to go for further help. Do be aware, we've got lots of online workshops and webinars, lots of materials that go into much further detail on some of the things like finding and accessing data. So this is just a quick overview.  So what is the UK data service? We're a comprehensive resource that's funded by the ESRC. So our main job is to be a single point of access to a wide range of secondary social science data. The main purpose then is the collection, ingest and processing of the data and further dissemination of that data to people for its use. In addition to that data infrastructure core, we also have a service layer which provides extensive support training and guidance. Who is it for? Well, we like to think it's really for anyone who has an interest in data. Traditionally though, our main audience and the people who probably both deposit and use the data the most tend to be academic researchers and students. There's a lot of other groups that are well represented to including government analysts, charities, foundations, businesses, research centers, think tanks, all give us and use our data. Given the importance of data and how it's used and how it's disseminated, we're trying to reach out to support a wide range of communities. The front page of our website, which some of you may have already seen, this is the sort of top half of the home page to give you a flavor of what we do. And then the link to the page is just above there. So I'll show you where to find some things specific to qualitative and mixed data in just a little bit. So here we go. So what kind of data do we hold at the UK data service? Well, this session is about qualitative and mixed, but just so you know the majority of the data, at least judging by the number of collections is actually quantitative data. We hold over, I think it's over 7,000 collections now, of which, you know, at least, what, 6,000 of those are quantitative collections. We do hold a wide variety of that data. So we've got survey data, both processional and longitudinal. There's also aggregate statistics, domestic international macro data, and census data. There's aggregate for 1971 to 2011 and micro data for the select years that are listed there. But of course today we're focusing on qualitative and mixed methods data. Where does it come from? Well, again, that varies depending on the data type and some of these sources that you see here, including agencies and statistical time series. Those are clearly the main sources of the quantitative data. Most of the qualitative and mixed methods data comes through individual academics, many of which are funded by research grants. You know, that's often the ESRC, but it's not exclusively. We also take data that's funded by others, including the welcome trust and lever human and others and as well as independently funded work. And also, of course, for qualitative originally paper based materials. We also hold public records and historical sources, including things like the census, which I've just mentioned as well. So, if you were want to find a quick way to see all of the qualitative data we hold, we do have a place for this on our website. You simply click find data at the very top of the homepage, and then there's a middle option there to browse and access data. And if you scroll down, you'll see these boxes and these are the main types of data that we store, but you can see there's qualitative and mixed data with one of the options is listed right there. So right now we've got 1620 collections that come up based on what I've said this, what I just looked at this morning. It does cover a huge range of topics, but you can also browse by theme. So there's another area on that same page just above the browse by data type, which has a selection of quite high quality data specifically covering these themes. So the theme, the browse by theme will include a range of different data types, so both qualitative and quantitative for each of those we tried to use a selection of a broad range of data types, but it is going to be mixed what some of those are. So let me tell you a little bit about some of the collections we hold that will give you a sense of the range of qualitative data that we hold. So the first study here demonstrates the quality and capacity and inclusive research with people with learning disabilities. So this is focus group based research. Some of the focus groups are with people who have learning disabilities and some of the focus groups are with researchers who they themselves have learning disabilities and are doing research on learning disabilities. So it's very much in the spirit of active research of participatory research, and of course, a good example of focus group research. Just to note here as well that data reuse is a great way to access certain populations which would normally be really difficult to access, whether because they're physically difficult to access such as prisoners, or in the case of disability, sometimes it just requires further resources to appropriately safeguard and address the needs of the group and that may pose funding or ethical challenges. The second item here is intergenerational dynamics, and that's by Jennifer Mason, and that looks at whether people above the age of 50, consider themselves a generation, and whether or not they identify as a generation in contrast to other age groups, whether they're younger or do they, you know, do they identify themselves differently. So she's done a great deal of work on these kinds of aging and generational dynamics. And this is inner interview based data, and again, very high quality data. The next one is chronic illness and online networking expectations assumptions and everyday realities. We have diabetes in the use of Facebook. So just to point out something about this particular one. We don't necessarily have a lot of data that, you know, I think some still call it new and novel, although that that label may be fading a bit. You know, we don't have a lot of this kind of data per se. This kind of social media, big data, those sorts of things, but we are getting some and this is a good example of someone who's using Facebook contact in order to study how people with diabetes form support groups, and how they get information. So it's quite creative and a different kind of data from the usual interview based data. Yeah. And the fourth one down there is the coalition presidentialism in comparative perspectives, minority executives and multi party systems. So the title is quite a mouthful. And it's not quite as accessible as the others. But I just wanted to make the point with this one that you don't just get individual based data in qualitative and mixed methods. So this study looks at presidential coalitions across a number of countries. So that's across Europe, Africa and Asia. And it makes the point again that even with qualitative research, you can still do macro scale kind of comparative work. And this kind of study is a good example of that. Family life and work experience before 1918 is the founding collection for the qualitative part of the archive. So this one is not new, but I would be amiss if I didn't mention it. It's comprised of over 400 oral history interviews, and it's considered to be the first oral history project of Britain. It's been very well used so you know it doesn't really need a lot of promotion, but I just wanted to sign post it.  And some of these interviews are absolutely massive very long, and they cover all aspects of people's lives. So it's an incredibly rich collection. So what I'm going to do now is give you a quick whirlwind tour of the three collect of three of the collections that we hold here and tell you a little bit about, you know, what they've done and how they've been used. So the first is the last refuge. I've put the SN in there, which might be a bit of an esoteric term if you're new to the UK data service, but all of the collections have a study number associated with it. There are collections through a lot of tools but if you do happen to run across a study number and SN. It's a really quick way to find a collection. So it's really useful to know about you can just pop that number into our data catalog and it'll bring up that exact collection. The last refuge was conducted by Peter Townsend, and it's a major investigation into long stay institutional care for old people in Britain in the late 1950s. And again a bit like, you know, family life and work experience but before 1918. This study was really exceptional for its breadth and range given the time that it was done. The collection has in depth interviews with 67 local authority chief welfare officers and with serving staff and residents of 173 institutions. It's also an important collection because of the diversity of contents. So it wasn't just interviews there were also photographs field notes and diaries. And I think another feature that is quite important about the collection is that the diaries are recorded by both members of staff and residents of the institutions. So I think this is one of the few examples where there are actual, you know, voices of residents of long stay institutions. So here you can see the richness of some of the images that are available with this data collection. And it really helps you to visualize more of the context of this collection. And the reason that this collection is so influential is twofold. So one was that it was a pioneering use of qualitative data in the area of old age retirement and isolation and services and so forth. Some quantitative work had been done, but really the use of qualitative data for this kind of direct policy relevance was new with Townsend's work. And the second reason was that this study had major policy implications, because Townsend's results changed whether long stay institutions were really the best place for the elderly. And I think part of the conclusion in the book is that for many elderly in some circumstances, it's, you know, they weren't the right form of institution, but it also had practical implications in that he recognized that people needed not just criticism, but also suggestions. So we came up with, you know, recommended improvements that institutions could adopt the next study I'll tell you a little bit about. It's my favorite study that we hold at the archive. And this is called the school leavers study. And in this case, the original data was collected in 1978 by a researcher named Ray Paul. This was work done with students on the Isle of Sheppy. So Sheppy is an island just off the eastern part of the UK, and Ray Paul had spent a long time studying many aspects of living and working on the Isle of Sheppy. So this included employment, education, religion, family. So huge range of issues. And somewhere in that process he got quite interested in schools and the educational experience. So he found out that teachers at one of the comprehensive schools were asked, you know, we're setting a particular kind of essay for pupils to complete just before they were due to leave school. So this is roughly about 16 years old. And I think, you know, this is actually quite a difficult kind of essay, but they were asked to imagine that they were nearing the end of their life. And they then had made them think back to the time that they left school. And they then had to write an imaginary account of how their life played out before leaving after leaving school at at 16. So this is, you know, the 30 or 40 years after. During a difficult exercise to engage in these students did an impressive job of providing details which allowed a quick glimpse into their aspirations expectations and realities of their lives to come. So, what we got as a result of that exercise is 141 of these essays. So there's 89 boys and 52 girls. And what you see here briefly is, because there's a lot more to be done with these essays. So I'm just highlighting a few key points is some themes of realism, possibly pessimism but definitely realism. So young people talked about mundane but stable and grounded jobs. They imagined very gradual career progression. And somewhat morbidly some predicted an early death, either for themselves or their loved ones. And the quotes give you a flavor of that kind of tone. And not all of the essays but these are the strong themes throughout the data set. So as I said very realistic very down to earth kinds of commentary. So for example we had one boy who said, it was hard finding a job, I failed a few chances but eventually got what I wanted locally. Or the boy who said I was on the dole for six months after leaving school until I got a job in a garage. Or the girl at the bottom, I longed for something exciting and challenging, but yet again I had to settle for second best. I began working in a large clothes factory. What's interesting is that contemporary researchers Graham Crow and Don Lyon went in about 2010, and they tried another similar exercise so it's not a strict replication. Because, you know, Ray Paul more or less stumbled upon the assignment that teachers had set. So there wasn't as much control over how the essay was put to students, but it's still a really useful re study. So Graham Crow and Don Lyon certainly took a lot of effort to try and make it as close to how it was put to students in the 70s as possible. So now we have a new collection of data, which offers a comparative to the present day. So like the first collection, it asked school leavers on Sheppy to imagine their lives and we get a very different story. So for young people, and about 2010 we hear different things. So again a similar sample size of about 110 essays that more evenly split between boys and girls. And generally the themes that arose from the presentation be students included stories of well paid instantaneous jobs, including signing a contract for football or singing. So we have choice but also a lot of uncertainty. We also clearly see the influence of celebrity culture. And again you get a feel for this re study from looking at the quotes, and you see how young people in 2010 had a very different view of the world from the young people in the late 70s. And he wrote that he had an amazing band and toward the world three times and sold 4 million records, and another thought he'd like to own a three bedroom luxury villa, a helicopter and a Bentley. And finally the girl at the bottom, who wanted to be anything from a dancer to a hairdresser to a horse rider. And if she was a dancer her dream would be to dance for Beyonce or someone really famous. So quite a shift in possibilities for young people today. In terms of the impact of this particular study is quite different from the last refuge. As part of the re study Graham Crow and online engaged with the community on the Isle of Sheppy, and actively sought to involve them in the process of data creation and analysis. As part of that initiative, they created the living and working on the Isle of Sheppy website, which you see here on the page. And this is where they have an archive so that the community members can see the original study, as well as what's been added as part of the re study. So it's given their community a bit of a written in oral history, while also engaging them in exploring their community from different perspectives. And they also have videos and art galleries and audio, so people can really experience the lived memory of their community. So finally for the third study. That I'm going to be looking at this one is actually a very well known mixed method study called the National Child Development Survey. And it follows the lives of over 17,000 people born in the same week of 1958. At this point, these people are surveyed every several years. And so far participants have they've been surveyed, I think it's about 10 times since the initial contact in 1958. And the most recent wave I believe was 2018 when the participants turned 60. So there should be another one coming up in another couple of years. And the first survey that was done started when the participants were just about seven years old. And at that point, information that had been collected was absolutely comprehensive so it included information about physical development, education, economic circumstances of the parents and family, employment, their own health, and well being, and their own social participation. So it's absolutely sweeping in terms of what's included. So simply from a standpoint of quantitative data. This is very good. But what makes it even better is that there's a qualitative addition to this fantastic collection, which allows for rich mixed methods data to be done. So in 1969, when the kids were aged 11, there was an interesting essay, and it was very similar to the school leavers essay, but it was a little bit different. And it was done with the children and they were asked to imagine that they were 25. So in a sense, perhaps a little bit more realistic experience in that they only had to project about, you know, about 15 years or so ahead, still difficult, perhaps at their age, but they got over 500 essays in the end. And of course, what's very valuable about this collection is twofold. One is that the sample size is large, particularly for a qualitative collection. But the second is that you have the quantity quantitative data to compare to what actually happened to them at age 25. So not only can you look at what they thought would happen, but then you can actually look at their lives at 25, and now also 45 and see how things actually unfolded. And there have been a number of articles written using this collection, Jane Elliott, whose publication looking at gender here on this slide is perhaps one of the best known people who have used this data set. Okay, so hopefully I've persuaded you that using qual and mixed data is a great idea, and that you might want to get your hands on some of it. So let me just go through how you can do that. And you can do that using our data catalog is aptly name. This slide just kind of gives you a glance at how you would be able to conduct a search using, you know, using the filters on the left hand side there so there's two different criteria that I've circled there. There are options there so you don't necessarily have to pick those. So when you click the find data tab at the top, and then click to access and browse data, that'll bring you to our data catalog. And the left hand menu has all the options for filtering. So I've set a filter here for qualitative and mixed methods data. And I've specified the United Kingdom. But again, there are options there so you can specify different countries as well. I've also picked just a general search term for food. And as you can see, we've got, you know, at least 44 collections that somehow have food as a keyword somewhere in the catalog record. So this could be in the abstract title the keywords or any of the subjects that are listed on the catalog page anywhere where food won't show up. So you can see a couple of examples here. You know, there's the consumer and traceability and older people's perceptions of experiences of strengths and vulnerabilities in the UK's food system. So that's how you would conduct a search. There are other, you know, filters that I haven't used there on the left. So you can be more specific about the kind of data that's returned. For example, if you only want current data, you can refine the dates of publication and that sort of thing. There is another online workshop and tutorials that we have available if you want further information about how to use our data catalog or how to find data. So we have a unique way to search for qualitative material specifically which is quality bank. And this is an online research resource which, you know, allows you to search browse and site qualitative materials. So you can get to it by clicking on the quality bank link that is just below the search bar in the data catalog, and quality bank allows you to search and browse and site qualitative data. It addresses three key issues that arise when reusing qualitative and mixed methods data. And I'm going to explain those issues just a little bit more as we go along. But in short, you are, you know, these are finding data, recontextualizing the data and citing the data. So if you want to search using quality bank, it's used in the same way as the data catalog. So, you know, you just type something into the search bar so here I've used typhoid. And again you can see like the data catalog, I get, you know, 22 results. What's different about how quality bank searches, however, is that it's actually searching through the data. So if you're looking for qualitative data that specifically has a key word or concept in it, then you can use quality bank to search through the data itself, rather than just the catalog record. And this is a key issue in reusing qualitative data. How do you find the right data for your project? The nature of qualitative data is that it's rich in depth and detailed and could potentially answer a lot of different research questions beyond the ones that the original investigators chose. So taking the time to familiarize yourself with the data can be quite time consuming if you're searching for a specific topic, and it returns a number of collections. But quality bank helps resolve some of this by searching through the data itself. So hopefully you'll have a better idea of whether that data is the right kind of data for your project. So right now quality bank has about 50 collections uploaded into its database, but we are going to quickly expand that hopefully soon, but you can browse through all of that data. If you know what collection you want to look through specifically or if you have certain criteria for our participants age, gender, socioeconomic status or region, you can also refine those characters using the left hand menu, as you would have done in the data catalog as well. You'll need to hit refine when you do actually tick some of those browsing facets otherwise the search won't take that facet into account. But yeah, there's a there's a range of criteria there that you can filter. So from that search on typhoid, I then chose to look at the interview with Mrs. omission. And you can see the interview transcript laid out on the web page and your search term would be highlighted within that transcript. What's also nice about quality bank is that it links to external resources. So, just there at the, at the very top of the slide, you can see that we've got further resources and collection documentation linked there if you click that link. Thank you to the bottom of the page after the transcript finishes, and there would be a variety of resources and, you know, that are related to that particular interview. So this could be things like audio extracts. I think there's a book for the book abstract for the Edwardians, which is where this collection of this particular interview is from images that are related to the collection metadata on the participants. And it's a really useful tool to help you contextualize that specific qualitative data. And this added context, whether it's accompanying audio expanded discussion on the data from the original investigators, or some other project which reuse the data. This really helps to re contextualize the data. This added context helps you understand the limitations and the opportunities within that data. And again, quality bank gives you the this direct through those additional resources. Finally, there's also the ability to site using quality quality bank. So we all know how important it is to cite your work properly. And that's no different when you are reusing data. So quality bank automatically generate citations for you to copy and paste into your work. Simply click the create citation button in the left hand menu, then highlight with your cursor, a portion of the text that you want to site. Then that create citation button turns into a retrieve citation button.  And that would automatically appear with the citation and the citation is very specific. It directs viewers to the passage that you've highlighted. So if someone were looking at this citation and they were to click on the persistent identifier. That's the URL at the end of the citation. It would bring them specifically to the highlighted portion of that transcript. And that addresses the third issue and reusing qualitative data, which is all about evidencing your conclusions. So you don't just cite the general collection or perhaps even the transcript, you actually get a much finer grain reference. So others can see the quotation in the full context of the interviewer data set. So this really helps to add weight to your conclusions and it demonstrates transparency to your processes and your analysis. And I think is a tool that's, you know, we're still expanding on at the archive we're still working on support materials to help you use it effectively, and we're still building up the database that it draws from. If you do have queries about it please feel free to get in touch with us. And we always have new data coming in. So I've covered just a few specific examples of collections and reuse projects. I want to give you a sense of the kind of breath of data that we have, but I just wanted to put up a few examples of some of the more recent acquisitions within the last few years, just to show you what sorts of things are always coming in. So we have data on things, you know, big major political issues like Brexit and COVID got things like LGBT rights. There's a few collections on climate change, as well as collections that are done with vulnerable and hard to reach populations like refugees and children.  So it's, it's a growing part of our archive. Now we'll turn to the final sections of this presentation and just talk a little bit about access and some other tools and resources to help you get started. Data are freely available to anybody who registers with us. Now we do have material that's held under different licenses. So you might remember the collection I mentioned on presidential coalitions and how it's not quite as accessible as some of the other collections. This is, this is what I'm talking about some of the restrictions here. So for example, we can hold open data, which is freely accessible to anyone. Even those who are not registered with the archive, we only have a handful of collections like that. There's obvious ethical implications regarding open data. So in terms of our qualitative collections, most of those are safeguarded data. And that does require you to register. And then of course we also have some qualitative data that's held under more restricted conditions. Any conditions for a data set would be listed on its catalog record. But basically, if you're using the data for a non commercial purpose, that data is free to use once you register with us. And data are available in multiple formats. So for qualitative data, that's usually text we use RTF as is our standard for archiving. There's also PDFs as well. We hold just just a couple examples of qual software packages. It's not some because they're proprietary it's not something we normally hold. But we have had some depositors who wanted to deposit those. And we also hold images, some audio and some video as well. There's not huge collections in the audio and video, simply because of the size that it takes, but increasingly we do take them. And there are rather, you know, archives that that hold that specialize in audio and video as well. But if you if you were interested in that you just need to get in touch with us. So if you are at a UK university, your own username and password would get you in. If you're not, you'll need to make an application and assuming you meet the criteria and agree to the terms and conditions, which I'm going to say a little bit more about on the next slide. You'd be issued with a UK data service specific username and password, which would get you access to the data. It would probably take me longer to actually read this slide and explain registration than it is to actually do the registration. So I'm going to, I'll leave you to have a look at that. The only thing I want to point out is that when you go through registration, you have to accept the terms and conditions of our end user license. So this is a legal documents. And, you know, it's about as exciting as any legal document is, but I want to stress just two points from this documents. If you sign up to use the data from the UK data service, you are agreeing not to disclose the identity of parties participants, even if you should discover who they are. In most cases, you'll not be able to uncover identity of participants because the data has been anonymized. But even if you should, you're not permitted to disclose that identity. The second point is that you can't share the data onward, and that means with anybody.  We have lots of resources available for students and researchers, and those people who would also like to use it can always register separately and download the data for themselves. So just to point out, don't disclose the identities and don't share the data onward. Those are the main things to remember about our end user license. Downloading the data. Again, there's a great short video which walks you through the process. You pick your data. You have to write a short description about what you plan to do with the data. It's a little bit like an online shopping experience except with data. The video tutorials are really useful if you've not downloaded the data before. You do have to kind of enter what the use of the data is and then assign that collection to that use. It's a little bit of an extra step, if you will, from just dropping the data in your basket and checking out, if you will. But once you've done it once or twice, it is fairly straightforward how you do it. Some useful tips, particularly for new users. At the very bottom of our opening page down near the Contact Us and Legal Bits, we have a link for advice to new users. It will take you to our guides that have been specifically set up for those who are coming into the service for the first time. We've got all sorts of resources on how to find data with our data catalog, how to register and access the data, what kinds of data we hold. And there are other kind of these sorts of workshops and online webinars on census data, micro data, longitudinal data. So you can get all of those online. The recordings of those are all on our YouTube channel. And you can also get in touch with us to send a help desk request. And we do have a growing collection of video tutorials and how to guides. Again, you know, on the main menu at the top. You can under the Learning Hub, you'd be able to find our video tutorials there. But there's also our YouTube channel, which is listed here, that will allow you to access all of our recordings.  Just to say we're kind of at the end of the semester now. So we run in line with the academic year a little bit with our training. So we've kind of finished up the round of webinars and online workshops that we've done now. Now we do have a few of these events that are listed already, but we are going to add the events for next semester soon. So do check back at our upcoming events to see when those are going to be. You know, we cover things like data management and anonymization if you're actually working with and processing data. Or if you're interested in reusing data, we have more webinars on things like introduction to secondary analysis. So do check back and see what other events we've got coming up. And just a few more resources. So I've gone through the support and how to guides, as well as events like our online workshops. We've got advice for data management for those who are in the early stages of their research or if you're coordinating large programs, which involve, you know, multi university collaborations. We're happy to talk with you about your data management requirements, whether you're just a single individual or part of a larger consortium. We're also to hear about very eager to hear about how you are getting on with our data what you're doing with it. So if you've used it in a previous publication or in teaching, please get in touch and let us know and we can help you publicize that. So if you've got a link to a publication from reuse, we can publish that on our websites or, you know, get you featured in one of our case studies. So our case studies look at people's experiences of reusing or depositing data. It's reusing in a wide sense, so whether that's research or teaching or some other use, we'd still love to hear your story of reuse. And then of course, if you have further questions, please see our help pages and our FAQs. And finally, the usual ways if you have a specific questions of us, we do have lots of pages if you're new to using data, but you can also email us. We're also on social media. So I've got the Twitter handle listed there, but we also have a just mail list where we publish our recent acquisitions. And we also post our event recordings on the YouTube channel. So thank you for listening. I hope you found this helpful for getting started with your reuse project.


Live from the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. It's theCUBE, covering DevNet Create 2018. Brought to you by Cisco. Hi, my name is Lauren Cooney and welcome back to theCUBE. Today we're actually at, down in Mountain View at DevNet Connect where we're talking to folks about cloud, DevOps, things along those lines and really what developers are looking for in today's environment. Today I'm here with Kurt and we're gonna talk a little bit about what Kurt is doing and why he's here and what's going on in your world. Thanks, Lauren. I'm excited to be here. This is, you know, being at a DevNet Create where IoT is sort of a major backdrop as a change of pace for us and something that we're very excited about to get involved in. Great. So what, you're here for IoT. What are you really looking at within IoT? What is interesting to you? Well, so I work with Sonatype and our sort of passion and what we bring to the world of, you know, IT in general is software supply chains. We saw a gap in a virtually unlimited supply of open source components that are being used to develop modern solutions and we've been helping our enterprise customers solve this problem for a while and it now occurs to us that it's just gonna explode and get much bigger with IoT. And all the types of devices. And it's all the same problems and it's the same sorts of things that we need to think about as traditional IT, if you will, traditional applications. So what's an example of a customer that you would help with regards to your solution and with IoT? So it would be generally a large enterprise that's looking to put some governance around what's flowing into the organization in terms of these free components, libraries, utilities that are being packaged together and delivered. In the world of IoT what's interesting is we also need to be very careful about what we put in there for possible exploits and we need to be thinking about how are we going to keep them patched and updated, right? We have a saying at Sonotype that software ages like milk and not like wine. So it's generally just a matter of time before components start to show their age and suffer from known exploit patterns. And so we're going to need to get in front of that problem, make sure we're thinking about it as we start to develop the millions and billions of devices that are going to start to proliferate throughout our lives. Exactly. And so how do you decide what open source you support or what devices you support inside of that supply chain? Yeah, so we're focused on it. So we're looking at just the open source, right? So it's not the proprietary stuff, it's not the commercial stuff. So we're watching the 60 million GitHub repositories and we're watching a million events a day trigger. And we're just looking through the forums and through the commit logs and a variety of others, like a thousand plus other sources and correlating all that data into something that's very specific and actionable so that our customers can ultimately make an informed decision about what they're using, right? So half of the battle of managing risk is simply being aware of what you've got. The goal is not necessarily to be perfectly clean, but to have really good awareness of where your weaknesses are so that you can sort of prepare or brace yourself against it or put up other mitigating controls. Great, and so do you guys provide a dashboard, for example, for a compliance team inside of a company? Well, what we provide is a fully automated solution that embeds throughout your software delivery lifecycle. It's designed for the modern world. It's designed to be very precise so you can automate against it. And that's where traditional tools fall down. They were sort of built for a waterfall era where people could take days to go through an approval process. We feel it needs to be done in a matter of minutes so it fits in a modern pipeline. So yeah, we provide that intelligence feed and then we're tied into your build and delivery process and then it does surface, it can break the pipeline and surfaces as a dashboard report where you can drill into the details and then figure out what you've got to do to move forward. Great, and that tracks licenses and things along those lines as well. Yeah, licenses is sort of the original concern of open source. It is. It's being overshadowed by more recent security concerns, but licensing is a very important part too if you want to protect your IP. You need to be careful about what you're putting in these devices. Oh, by far. Now, I was looking at your LinkedIn a little bit earlier and you have a lot of experience with DevOps and actually driving DevOps environments, tooling, things along those lines. What, tell us about that. Yeah, so I started getting involved in DevOps sort of when it was very first a word, if you will. I literally rebranded my team, the DevOps team and it was meant to provoke conversations. It was fairly effective at that, but I did develop a high trust team. I actually was able to implement the cultural part of that within my team. I couldn't change the whole Fortune 100 insurance company, but we could demonstrate the art of the possible. It was an awesome ride. I was also inviting security to the table long before DevSecOps came on the scene because I intuitively understand it was holistic and we needed to get everybody involved. So yeah, so I'd like to think I was a little bit ahead of the curve there and had an opportunity to do some great work with some great people that continues to serve me well to this day as we as an industry mature into it. Yeah, I think it's really interesting. I remember going into a large customer and we were talking about kind of a solution for this customer and at one end of the table was the infrastructure developers. The other end of the table was the app developers and in the middle sat the tooling guys. And so it was always interesting to see how they kind of flock to their different sides and when they started working together how a couple of people would sit together and they morphed a bit. And I think that's really interesting in terms of the culture element. Yeah, I mean, that's essentially what my team was. We were that tooling team, but we acted as the team that was bridging those relationships and bringing those teams together. The middleware team in particular along with our development team. Apps was a little bit further down the line, but also getting security and audit involved, stuff like that. So yeah, it was an interesting role and it's just neat to see that we're maturing as an industry and this is starting to become very real and the tooling now exists to make this stuff very doable unlike five years ago. There just wasn't quite the tooling there. Conceptually we knew what we wanted to do, but until the tooling shows up it's hard to really automate it and do it the way you want. So what kind of tooling is exciting you right now? What are you seeing out there? So what excites me is in addition to our own product, which is in a family of products that I would say is automated inspection, right? And so gone are the days of late lifecycle, heavy lift, manual inspections and here today now we have an ability to inspect continuously early in the process in that CI pipeline where things are happening 10 times a day. We can get that feedback to those delivery teams when it's most timely. And then so you combine that with containerization at least in the regular application space which gives us a converged supply chain. So now my OS, my middleware, everything is flowing through that pipeline as opposed to when I was doing it I was taking the application and ultimately deploying it to a statically provisioned environment. No two of which of those environments ever look quite the same. Now with containers that problem sort of goes away and we have all this inspection tooling that helps us build quality in and not try to inspect it in later. Exactly. And just one of the things I'm looking at when I look at supply chain, the question comes to mind around blockchain. And are you looking at blockchain as something you might integrate into your solutions at some point in time? I'm personally not looking at it yet but it's hard to imagine that I won't be looking at it soon because I can't read three articles and one of them not be about blockchain these days. It seems to hold a lot of promise in terms of provenance and basically chain of custody type things which are also important to this whole supply chain issue. So yeah, I think it has a future. I think I've got a few things on my plate I need to get off first and then I'll have to start looking at blockchain. That's great. Now is there anything that was really wowing you from the show? We've got, there's Maraki here, they're giving away something like $1.2 million of equipment. Were you surprised to see anything more really outside of just IoT, what are you really seeing pop? Like I said, this is a bit of a new venue for me. I've been attending DevOps days and DevOps Enterprise Summit and local meetups and I've been really narrowly focused in that space and this last year, so now I'm getting more into the cloud and this is my first IoT based event. It's great to see Cisco in their second year having such a successful event. It's really grown a lot. It's in a terrific venue. But in terms of wowing me, I think it's just access for me personally to the folks in the IoT community so that I can start to wrap my head around it and share our story with them, which I think has raised some eyebrows and got some interest to think about supply chain issues in that context. Well I think it's absolutely necessary that you actually enable this software across the enterprise. I know that my experience in many enterprise organizations would have been a lot easier if I had your software and the ability to do that. Yeah. You know, I think that's great. So, you know, one of my other questions is, are you guys, are you partnering with DevNet? Is there a relationship there? Is this just educational for you? No, we definitely, we have a relationship with Cisco and we like to support events like this. It helps us get out. It helps us build these types of relationships. Yeah, I mean, I think this is an emerging relationship between Cisco and Sona type and obviously IoT has such a big future. There's a lot of potential there for both parties, I think. That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for sharing everything that you did and we will be right back from Cisco DevNet.


You know, Theo Eftzen said something last week. He was disappointed in the effort on the field with superstars on a fair position, and he apologized to the Cubs fans. So he said, there's a chance that something can happen big at the deadline if these guys don't pick it up. And if they continue to stumble and bumble a little bit, I will be concerned because over the last three days, I was really impressed with them. You can see the sense of urgency the way they played this weekend with the sweep. But today, once again, Cincinnati's 7-3 this year against the Cubs. Not good because that's the last place team, but they've been throwing aside for the Cubs this year. But I would not be surprised if something big happened at the deadline. What are the Cubs need? Yeah, I'll tell you what I think, Theo. I think they need some depth.  You know, you could put him anywhere. You could give somebody a day off. They were moving Bryant around the field. They had a lot of versatility on the team. And right now, without Zorberst on the scene, you know, I think they need some veteran help off that bench. Is there a player who has to step up for this Cubs team? Is there one guy who can carry him? Well, it's always led by Anthony Rizzo. It starts with Anthony Rizzo. Chris Bryan has been playing really well. It's one of these things I think they got too many superstars and guys have a tendency to coast because they think the other guys are going to pick them up that day. They've got to have a sense of urgency if they're going to win because they're built to win now. Not next year because all those impending contracts are coming up for the Cubs. And I think the addition of Kimbrough, you know, that shows you, hey, look, we're in this. Yeah, we are in this. So they went out and got themselves one of the best closers in baseball to help them at the back end of the game. But I agree with what Frank says. And I think they got to step it up a little bit as a team.


The Sew Right versus the Sew Back versus the Sew Spine two-year review. Hi, what's up guys, it's Josh here. Today I want to do a little comparison video on the Sew Right, the Sew Spine, and the Sew Back. The Sew Right, the most famous one, the most popular one, has been a deep tissue staple for me for years. It's one of the only products that can really get to pretty much any knot, no matter how deep it is, no matter how bad it is. You know you can dig into any point with any intensity or with as much intensity as your body weight can hold. So do I use them? Have they broken? Have they not broken? Is there any signs of wear and tear? So let's start off with the Sew Right. Absolutely no signs of wear and tear, no issues with it whatsoever. I've had it probably for about three years, maybe four years, absolutely love it. I was initially using it on my back, my legs, things like that. But what's crazy is a lot of times when you have back pain, it is the Sew As and it is like those hippic abductors, whatever they are.  And once you like relax the Sew As, it's like all of a sudden that tension's off your back. It is so weird, you know what I mean? But the only issue that I would say is that it is a little bit difficult at times getting into certain positions, but if you, that's what she said, but if you really take your time and you really focus, you can pretty much get into any position. But anyways, absolutely love it, no signs of wear and tear. All right, now let's go to the Sew Back. Now I actually really like the Sew Back on paper. I do wanna say that it did seem like it was a lighter plastic than the other kinds and on top of that it has an arch. So it's a little bit more compromising. I'm a big guy, I'm probably about 210 pounds, but again, I'm assuming people who use these products can be up to 250. Maybe even up to 300 pounds. So you would want it to not have any issues, right? I've had two of these Sew Backs and I do wanna say that the only products that they sent me is a Sew Back. The Sew Back broke and they sent me another Sew Back and that broke. The Sew Backs just break. I mean, I think they said that they might send me another one, but it's like, it's just gonna break, you know? Don't even worry about it. It has that arch, which really gets the crack out of your back. I actually like a little bit of an arch up when I'm trying to crack my back. I don't wanna get into the chirp wheel in here because it's a different product, but it's like a circular wheel with like rubber on it. It feels very similar to that because it would get each point of your back accentuated and pop it. So I really like that, but unfortunately they're pretty expensive and both of them broke. So Sew Back, I loved it. Just needs some thicker plastic, especially for those bigger people. All right, now we go on to the Sew Spine. And the Sew Spine, I have no issues with it. It has no wear and tear. I've had the Sew Spine for longer than both my Sew Backs. I've had no issues with it whatsoever. It's a solid product.  I had the Sew Back which arched my back. So I really wouldn't use it to crack my back. What it would be good for, I've seen people use it for, it's like in the back of a chair and it would kind of push your spine forward, things like that. On the ground, it's okay. It's not bad. I just don't find myself using it. I think something with a little bit more arch is just better. It's gonna get more stretch and more pop out, but I have no issues with it. The Sew Spine and the Sew Right, I've been kind of a little bit rough with them and I've had no issues whatsoever. No chips, no dings, no nothing. You know what I mean? So gotta say, I absolutely love the Sew Right. Fantastic. The best for getting out knots. It's just a little bit hard to use, but an absolute classic. I love the Sew Back. Very good product, just the plastic was a little bit cheap. Both of them broke, so for right now, I'm probably not gonna get another one because it just seems like a waste of time. And then with the Sew Spine, it's a great product. If you're somebody who maybe wants to use it with a chair, maybe in the car, maybe it would work for you. I just find that I want a little bit more of an arch to kind of pop each part of my spine that I can. Anyways guys, we're on the road of 50,000 subscribers. I couldn't do it without any of you guys to help you guys are the best. Having a great day out here. Hopefully having a great day at home. See you all in the next video. Peace.


Hey everybody welcome to another post collab talk tweet jam tweet jam takeaways, and I'm here with John white. Hello Hello Christian. How are you now? Happy new year almost happy. Well, yeah, almost happy new year So yeah, thanks for participating. This has been you know traditionally And I know that tigraph has been a sponsor of the tweet jams for most of the decade You've been involved. We were just talking about it since at least that I can remember specifically like late 2012 Early 2013 which is like a year and a half after we started you may have been involved since the first couple episodes Yeah, yeah, it's possible. It's possible. I know we started systematically doing it In 2016 like there is a matter of record tigraph sponsoring the tweet jam and all that stuff But yeah, we were definitely involved with you well before that. Well, this is great What started as you know it was has always been our biggest tweet jam of the year and this month of Course didn't disappoint. We had some great activity. I still need to go back through Like Jay least did a summary blog post where he pulled out a bunch of tweets I'm still going back through the tigraph tools out in power bi Which I'll provide the link in the recording as well, but it's linked at tigraph.com whack collab talk it gets all of those And so you can really get in and look at the sentiment analysis around that as well as in the last tab Which I love or we've talked about for years until we had it which was every single tweet that used the hashtag During that that time period. Yeah, and you can filter it by event too, right? If you go back it that only goes back a certain distance, but but yeah You can go back and compare event over event or yeah Yeah, no, it's cool stuff to go back so there's if you missed it of course you could go back and search on Twitter and In on the collab tech hashtag and find tweets from every tweet jam which is monthly for the last decade It's all still there. Yeah, however, it's easier to go through the tigraph tools What's a little a little more and a little more informative. I'll put it down. Yeah, I agreed Well, so this this topic the end of year is always like a look back at the year as well as kind of a look forward So let's jump right in and get some of your thoughts John So the first question was in your opinion, what was the biggest news for Microsoft 365 dynamics 365 in Azure this year?  There was a lot of events around that's all all the major events We're talking about Viva So I'm not sure that it was the biggest or the most important technologically But it was certainly the biggest news of the year in my opinion. Yeah, and the only caveat I added to that my comment was that, you know, we've been talking about Viva for a couple of years now And so while it's GA and kind of all the things around it And I said, you know, I thought the the the stealth news the bigger news was really around Fluid framework and loop only because it's going to evolve and change like I so I put it like Viva Agreed loop and mesh as my one two three Yeah, I mean well that gets into it gets a one of the other questions But fluids certainly I think is the most I don't know if it's the most important across the stack But certainly if we're talking about the office group, I think it's the most important technologically Yeah, we'll come back to that as well But so question number two has your outlook on microsoft technology and or strategy changed this past year Why are we not why not? A little bit of bias here from partners Well and technologically again, I don't think it's changed a bit I mean we've bought into the we've bought into the cloud first for quite some time You continue to see good progress on that front And I don't have any complaints. I mean so the fact honestly the one thing I didn't write down yesterday is It hasn't really changed and that's To the good because if it was going to change it probably would have only gone downhill. It's pretty much I'm I'm still well sold on the strategy I'm well sold on the technology. There's some other aspects If you get outside of the technology on strategy Area like for example the community events and all the way all that stuff is handled. I It's it's worsened a little bit. I think I think there's a little bit of a cash grab going on There's there's a little over monetization Happening at microsoft and I think some of that has to do with the org structure Yeah, I think we'll come back to that too because we had a couple of questions about Community and then advice for microsoft and a number of people kind of made similar comments I made a comment similar to that about you know microsoft and priorities and You know historically microsoft has been you know like the battling beat, you know business units kind of focus on Let's go and create sometimes overlapping or conflicting capabilities in that And and I don't know that we're back purely to that but there I I think there are some areas where it's like Microsoft hey, are you not talking to each other? Are you not aware of what other teams are doing? And uh, there's some refining that needs to happen there. Yeah, yeah, exactly I mean, I could think of a particular example. This is I know and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get into the I'm not gonna get into the teams themselves, but I I can think of one particular example I know there's a team looking at Charging for something That will take away from the same spend happening on azure Just basically because it's in a different team. That's not a consideration And I I kind of think it's a dumb call, but you know, that's the way it says That's the kind of thing from a partner standpoint And we're at the front line of having to answer those questions for customers that are frustrated and they don't understand Why something and we're like, yeah, we we know this is what we're we're dealing with and Sometimes those get passed along to customers directly. So Yep Well, the third question kind of it that the heart of of our workspace, but have the introductions of viva flow and mesh Altered how you or your customers think about collaboration Again, I don't think it's had a major impact in the way we we think about uh collaboration I know I mean over the last couple of years. We've had a lot of customers Going whole hog rolling out just teams, right, you know that and and the whole remote working. So these are I guess I'll I'll call them icing on the cake to some degree, but I don't think they've been a fundamental change I think they are Formalizing that's what I think this is what I said yesterday was They're they're kind of formalizing the strategies the moves The way we think about collaboration for some time. So I don't think they're they're they're causing a change in thinking I think they're just realizing it. Yeah, I think viva really fits well into that category. It's it's more Again that word refining refining of the experience is the focusing on You know, we're really now just looking at how are people utilizing the technology and is that the right way? Is it the most effective? Is it the healthiest as far as? You know well being of our employees in the way. Is it a healthy collaboration model? Like it's great to have to report high efficiency But how long can you maintain that do we have a higher level of burnout around that? So having a better understanding of Not only hey, we have a certain number of downloads. We have a certain amount of content that's been uploaded or created And hey, we have more people chatting those are all important metrics to look at activity But is it happening in a meaningful way and are You know, are we seeing higher levels of of burnout are people? Truly engaged for the long term that's a it's just a healthier way of looking at collaboration Yep, it is and another thing I think about viva. I think it's a bit of a I don't know if it's a turning point it remains to be seen if we keep going in that direction But it's certainly a shift and it's a shift from I think Products being focused on features to being focused on functions Right as opposed to there's this thing you can do. There's this thing you can do There's this viva is supposed to be at least all about here's this experience you can have and these are the things you can get done And it's less of much less of a focus on the particular workload or the or the product or the feature itself In how it can get done. It's trying to bring together things from all kinds of you know Basically a from microsoft 365 as a whole to accomplish a goal And you know one thing an observation to is microsoft the last few years has really been Hoping that partners would step up and focus on industry specific solutions That's always been the case and there's opportunity for partners for isv's for service companies to go in there and And demonstrate their level of expertise in the education sector the manufacturing sector of those those different industries vertical Yeah, in the verticals somebody made or a couple of people made the comment about it was it was one of those ignite announcements around further expansion of the industry the vertical clouds And investments that microsoft is making there, but I think that there if you look at viva, which is about that employee experience flow, which is Really about I mean, it's it's more complex than that but really about you know Co-editing collaboration real-time collaboration across a loop loop loop. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah loop not flow loop Yeah Loop and and mesh. Yeah, I actually get that wording wrong in the question. Yeah, because it's supposed to be the loop and But you know what I meant? Yes, but you know with that with loop You know, it's still about you know about collaboration closer collaboration and then mesh is all about You know opening up just yet another opportunity for different ways that teams can go in their engage looking back at viva and and loop as The collaboration continuum Also providing different ways for people to go and connect. Yeah mesh. I think Mesh is I you know, uh, some people wrote it off as a toy. Um, I personally think it's not feature rich enough yet A microsoft does have a habit of rushing to market with something that's maybe incomplete at first. We'll see But I think conceptually It could bring something very important to the table and that we've we've lost with with remote work And I've always been a proponent of remote work. You know that but one thing we do lose is the the face-to-face The body language facial expressions, etc. Etc. If we could get that right virtually Um, I think that could be a killer I don't think it's there yet. It'll remain to be seen how much it's it's adopted I mean the whole walking around legless thing. I mean that's I mean something completely different when I'm walking around What I my joke when I saw that was that well, it's it's the premium feature where you get to pay more to get pants I know But but you know kudos to making the attempt and and this is you know an entry level into this this whole space And that could be Very interesting Obviously, I mean we've had enough sci-fi out there to show us that you know what some of the potential What some of the potential downfalls could be but I do Think it would be nice in a remote working environment to be able to collaborate a little bit closer Well, that's a great segue into question four, which is how has the continued effects of the pandemic impacted your Community activities and what are your community plans going forward because that I agree with you like we we have not found that happy medium yet I think the in fact is interesting watching as part of ignite with the mesh announcements How all of the unhappy faces, you know the emoticons as people clicking the down the thumbs down It went very negative around that in its defense It said that when you Want to look at it from our perspective and and it's it's not like we're we have an avatar like k experience You know, it's not that kind of seamless like is it the real world or is it memorex kind of thing it's But even with how naive the graphics are now we're early in this this process when you're in that Space and when you got the goggles on we've got the immersive experience It's incredibly powerful over the mind and how It does allow you to go and you can have a 2d Speaker presentation a power point going off and sit and watch that And then I could go over to you. We see each other or avatars We could walk off to where it's quieter Have a conversation about that have a couple other people join us walk back over Watch the rest of that and interact with that other presentation It just opens up new opportunities for community Agreed. I mean the folks at the european collab summit did a birthday party for sharepoint in june I think it was And they did exactly that it was it was a bunch of presentations on stage Your avatar could go up on stage and start speaking about things and It had you can see it. I mean you can see that I mean the technology kind of failed it at the at the end of the day I mean it was there was a lot of it was glitchy it didn't really work well You didn't get any facial expressions. It's hard to tell who was who except for the name floating over their head, right? But I You can see the potential of it And so that and that was you know, that was one of the community things that I did this year I I will just answer that question. I I'm sick and tired of virtual events. I'm just sorry You don't I mean you're basically just tossing a presentation if you're a presenter You're just tossing a presentation over the wall Um And and this is very little feedback I can speak certainly as a sponsor of some of these virtual events and talk about you know One measure is leads and we've gotten precisely zero leads out of all the events we sponsored over the last couple of years So there's no engagement with the audience on that front And I mean we've we've seen some events at the end of the year this this last year that We're quite successful actually Um from that standpoint and as a consumer You've seen during the course of the pandemic As an attendee say of the various microsoft events the content shrinking and shrinking and shrinking as I'm sure they recognize, you know, the attention span isn't nobody wants to be sitting in front of the computer for hours on end all the time But I mean the content has suffered tremendously and it's just turned into a mic a marketing marketing exercise Of just delivering messages and I don't need that. That's not what I need out of events So from that standpoint, it's had had a had a real negative effect, but I mean we're still trying We're still doing our best from a community standpoint. We're still communicating And you know bright lights at the end of the year. I mean the last three weeks in in december I spent Um Traveling around doing events again. So that was wonderful. Yeah, and I think as that starts to open up like look I think from like my like our user group I think it's uh, we decided going forward We settled on a new model, which is Our speakers will always be virtual or if they're there in person because we have a location But it will always be broadcasted always be like we had already been doing that But this is like the set model one of our sponsors journey team has said we have this dedicated space We will be and and not many people have shown up for this yet But I think that it will grow over time Where it's a viewing party and people that show up get some pizza and things as well But that's it. So you have the option, which is great from a community standpoint still anybody can get involved But that there is a place for us to virtually or in person gather and give people that choice The hardest part with doing a uh a hybrid is keeping the connection between virtual and in person and that's also something that I think with uh, uh, like the uh, north america clav summit. So wrackley's event out in brance of missouri Uh, that's something that I think is on the right track is the best that I've seen where we had As much as possible. I helped organize it But mark is really the the gets all the credit for leading it Um, but is the in person as well as online moderators So having those moderators so that we make sure that there is constantly Both that in person and online interaction q and a Somebody is raising a physical hand to ask a question on behalf of the virtual person That's right. That that I think that works really hard really really well But don't ever let mark hear you say something he did was the best you've ever seen. Oh, no And he'll never watch one of these videos. No, that's true. That's it won't get out Well, so the next question was uh, what three features available now are publicly announced or having or will have the biggest impact in 2022 uh, I gotta go, um I Again, it's the same From a technological standpoint. I think the my answer was um We've already talked about it right mash has got the potential for having the biggest impact loop If it's a dot like a mash, we'll see if it's adopted loop if it's widely adopted because loop isn't You know, they're pitching it as a product, but I actually think it's it's a feature It's a piece of functionality that goes into different products You know, it surprised me like we've talked about like fluid components and loop and I was excited about that But the whole the canvas the workspace that actually Took me by surprise. Yeah, I think that's going to be confusing frankly. Uh, we'll see Um, but it's another delve Yeah, or like an r&d product That really is until it's integrated within the other existing tools That is exactly what my concern is definitely what my concern is and um, you know As the other I have to go from my We focus on on collab talk on on the collaboration space obviously, but technologically from microsoft the uh What I see happening with synapse now and synapse in the power bi integration that's going to be coming That has been announced. I mean the big one for me was synapse being integrated with azure data explorer I know i'm out there on an edge on the edge on that one But um, but that's going to have a huge impact for me well And a lot of it too is that Going and looking at and I was talking with mark kashman about this a a few weeks back about how Where he did his summary of all the announcements out of ignite and I was pointing out I said more than half of these items are AI driven So the the AI footprint across microsoft's innovation. I mean that's going to be a massive You know continued impact Uh across uh 2022 I'd say I agree with you on on loop. Um, I I think there's a lot of A lot of opportunities. I also made the comment. I said I really thought that 2021 Was going to be the year that microsoft figured out the tasks the tasks like cycle across products So I'm I'm hoping 2022 it becomes a big thing. It gets figured out. You're more of an optimist than I am. I think yeah I know All right, so number six. What are your predictions for the microsoft ecosystem in 2022 and beyond? Oh, I don't remember what I answered yesterday, but I the easy one. I think is continued growth They're they're kicking it in the cloud I don't know if this is the year we're from a from a pure revenue stamp on the overtake aws or not But they're certainly on a trajectory. Um, I I don't see uh, I don't see any doubt there That's that's a big one. I think We're going to see the full blown return of in-person events in the latter half of this year So from a community standpoint, I think the things are going to get back what that looks like I don't know. I think we're going to see, you know As you mentioned like using marks marks event as the uh, as north america collapse summit as an example I think they'll be hybrid I don't think they'll be quite as big as they they used to be but you know, you got to start back somewhere yeah, I I I know that microsoft i've heard this from a number of microsoft people about how thrilled they are with the 10x 20x number of Registrations of participations for build and inspire and like I get that's not real is it? No, it's not. Well, that's that's the thing like we'd always have like putting on a share point saturday event And we'd be excited that we had 600 people register and then 250 people show up which was a which is a fantastic turnout by the way. That's right. Yeah, yeah But we have an event where we have, you know 400 register And 125 show up, you know kind of thing So it's it tends to be about a 60 drop-off For those in-person meetings. I have no idea what that is like But most people I talked to it's like, ah registers. I ended up not going to any of those sessions I'll watch some of the recordings later, but they count as attendees Right and from a microsoft marketing messaging back to your point Like that's fantastic for them, but then you lose all of the depth And it's useless for a partner event. It's just yeah, it's it's just useless So that Inspire was always my favorite event which the annual partner conference And that's all about in-person And it's all about in-person the relationships that you build and it's just it's flatlined Yep, that completely that's a perfect example So number seven question last question if you could give one piece of advice to microsoft leadership and or product teams What would it be? I don't think it's the new piece of advice, but uh flatten the org structure, man Flatten the org structure and it comes back to the stuff. I was talking about before I think far too many decisions are being made within They're not silos anymore. You know, it's one microsoft all of that there has been, you know Improven in that area. I don't want to take away from the the guns pointed at each other's heads But there are still too many silos. There's still too many There are still too many financial decisions that are being made around org units Not as not for the company as a whole and until you can start making decisions that cross The entirety of microsoft microsoft's not gonna Getting the most of it partners can't get the most of it because they want we want to use the whole stack I mean the value proposition of the microsoft product is that they work well together I mean, I know people would argue that point in some in some areas, but fundamentally that's that's you know Single identity across the board etc. Etc But if I have to start making design decisions around Frankly, I want to say a bad word that I around really bad licensing choices That's taking away from the true value of the platform And so I I think it would it would behoove microsoft to flatten their org structure It would benefit the whole community of benefit the partners that would benefit microsoft because I think they're going to make smarter decisions financially I agree. I I made the comment of three word. Well, so I said um flatten so kind of I was you know Echoing your point a couple other people made a similar comment. I said refine So it was really kind of uh refined then the strategy across that and and keeping that end to end You know customer end user experience in mind And I think which was a mantra that satya began his His career with his ceo I'm saying that we're going to look at that end to end customer experience in mind And not just develop point pull the solutions within that and then the third thing is As much as we love innovation and all the new things that are out there but uh Deliver on the promises already made Paying your technical debt Yeah, so I think that there's a and there's quite a few things this year I mean, that's how I kind of put viva this year into that category of Well, it finally went ga and kind of all the things I said, yeah, but this is stuff We've been talking about for a couple years now And finally kind of reaching that point. So I'd like to see more of that Yeah, yeah, so get finish something before we move on to the next shiny thing. Yeah, that'd be a nice idea Yeah, I realized with the innovation cycle and that's not always going to be the case but To have that in mind to be able to it's always heartwarming when then you ask questions about yeah But what about this that you talked about and was like, oh, yeah, yeah, well, we'll go find out We'll come back to you with that. It's like come on. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, but uh, yeah Anyway, looking looking forward to one thing that we didn't mention That I think is going to have a really big impact in this latin this this next year Is uh teams connect is the shared channels Capability. Yeah, it's a fundamental problem. Okay. Let's look at the number one platform out there that everybody's using It's microsoft teams And the number one problem that I have is multi-tenant and moving between those Yeah So if if connect and you know just to with the background on connect is the ability to create a channel and share it with people from outside the organization Um, and it's different than switching Your teams client to someone else's tenant so that you can work. That's what we've done up until now That holds the promise of eliminating the need for that if if I truly don't have to tenant switch again I agree. That's that's a game changer certainly in the team space and teams obviously Matters a great deal then communication becomes way more pervasive. It's much easier to share things Um, you know, I've been around I've been in the business long enough to say that's a great plan Let's see how it let's see how it materializes. So when I see it I'll uh and and work with it if it truly does deliver on that promise Um, I'll be very impressed. I am a little bit concerned about you know, the the processes that we've built up Until now will they work without doing that? I imagine Yeah, we're a lot of people are going to have to make a lot of changes to make this work the way I'm I'm I'm envision that John. I think the way that the phrasing you're looking for is that if there are opportunities There are partner governance tools providers and for consultants to help with that It's like, I mean look there's a yeah like as with anything you look at something as incredibly powerful as that That deals with identity deals with permissions and authentication and It's going to be there are governance questions that we need to answer about that. So I'm excited that microsoft is continuing to go. I I'm I mean I was I've been talking for some time about wanting to Start up a a a a mobile device like an emulator on my desktop Where I could interact with the teams From my mobile device has figured out the multi-tenancy at least from the learning It's very easy to move between tenants Why don't I have that the desktop? Why can I do that on my phone? And I can't step within the desktop. Outlook has figured that out. One node has figured that out Why couldn't teams figure that out? I always want to ask that question, but yeah That's uh, that's one piece of advice is answer that question microsoft. Why? Yep. Why why why really appreciate your time? Thanks again for your continued sponsorship Always a pleasure. Flat talk tweet jam. And of course, uh, we'll be back on january 25th The topic is not announced yet, but that is our 10th anniversary show or tweet jam So that's gonna be cool. I think we're gonna do for this where it's like one on one the post tweet jam We're actually gonna do a panel. So we're gonna do a bit more around it. So we'll make sure we'll have tigraph there I'll probably have jay on representing ad point. I know i'm representing the holiday edition of but uh Yeah, so you'll have to come decked out in tigraph gear. I'll definitely be doing that Make a crystal clear. Well, john. Hey, happy new year. Thanks for participating and we'll talk to you in the new year You know it sir. Have a good one


We see new exciting JRPG games being released pretty much all the time, this time as any other of course being no exception. I will be talking today about the new game Blue Reflection Second Light, a game now out on the Nintendo Switch, PC and PlayStation 4, developed by none other than Gust who are behind the Atelier series, a series very famous here on my channel, and then I will touch a little bit into the newest Neptunia spin-off game, called Neptunia X Cendron Kagura Ninja Wars, to then top it off with a little nerd out on the Mary Skelter series. So today we're all about JRPGs, we love that time of the year, did this like a month ago, we love this time of the year, and I know that a lot of my followers have never heard about any of these games. I will try to explain them, and I will also try to explain why I find them so interesting. One of these three games I actually don't recommend. So keep on watching to find out which one. Now this video is kindly sponsored by Kastify, and that is a website where you will find your next Nintendo Switch accessories along with phone cases. Their customizable Nintendo Switch case has 10 clear pouches for holding 10 games, and you can customize your Nintendo Switch carry case with your own name to make it your own.  It says Esha Gaming, I love it. It is highly durable and water resistant, it is soft on the inside and it has two zippers. It also has a secret mini loop on the strap, and you can absolutely match your Switch carry case with phone cases. The case is made with 90% recycled materials, I also want you to check out the Nintendo Switch OLED screen protector. It is anti-blue light, it is tempered glass, and like their phone cases, the screen protector has an anti-microbial coating, which eliminates 99% of the bacteria. The tempered glass is shock and scratch resistant, it is also anti-fingerprint. Go to Kastify.com slash Esha for 15% off on your next Nintendo Switch accessories and phone cases. Thank you so much for sponsoring this video. Now we are going to talk about the RPGs. So Blue Reflection's second light is apparently the second game in the series, and I'm just gonna be frank with you, I've never played the first game, I have heard the name, but I've never played it, but now I'm curious actually, I think I wanna pick up number one also, because, okay, long story short, Gust and Koei Tecmo, they like me, I think, because I'm so obsessed with their series that's called Atelier, I've reviewed all of their games almost. So my guy at Koei Tecmo, he sent me this review code without me asking for it, but I ended up redeeming the code and I ended up playing the game, and I was very surprised with how much I actually find myself to be familiar with the game, even though I knew nothing about the game or the series, it's now a series since it's two games, I guess. So the thing is, I had no expectations going into Blue Reflection's second light, let's just say. What I did find very interesting is that I immediately found it to be very similar to actually Atelier Ryza. I'm pretty sure they are using the same engine as in the Atelier games, and I'm also pretty sure that it is mostly the same development team or something, which it probably is since it's Gust. But the thing is, it feels like an Atelier game. The things that you do in the gameplay, everything from the crafting to the exploring and actually the combat is so much like Atelier Ryza. Let me just have that said. If you like Ryza, you will probably like this game also, because you do pretty much the same gameplay loop in Blue Reflection as in Atelier Ryza. It's just another setting, some other characters, and it's a school setting, and it's a different lore and story and all of that also. So actually, the story. I know this is not a buy or not video, but anyway, it's a story. You play as Ayo, an amnesiac girl who finds herself at a school island surrounded by water together with three other girls who are in the same situation. They have no memories or recollection of why or how they ended up in such a situation. And the story is what made me hooked at first. With me, I have found out what kind of gamer I am. I have found out what kind of story is the most interesting to me anyway. And I seem to really enjoy stories that involve around mysteries, mysterious sort of stories where you know nothing sort of thing at the beginning of a game, because then I am intrigued and this is apparently very important for me in order to enjoy a story in a game. Some examples of how I found out that I enjoy stories with mysteries in them is that I remember, for example, Ease 8, why I was so drawn to that story, like that came out of nowhere, that I loved the story so much. It was the mystery of it all and I also remember enjoying so much Death and Request 2. That is also a mystery story anyway, so I'm going way off topic. Blue Reflection. It's a mysterious sort of story, which actually I found to be hookable even though I am not necessarily into the school setting. I know that is pretty big in JRPGs, the school settings. But I don't mind school settings, but it's not my thing necessarily. But the thing with Blue Reflection is that it is very focused on storytelling and getting to know all the other characters that you're living with. It's not necessarily a girly game, but just because there are girls in this game. Whatever. But there are only girls in this game, if that is important to you or not, I don't know. But I really enjoy the character interactions and I pay attention to everything. I read everything. I listen to what they say. There is unfortunately not English voice acting. There is Japanese voice acting, but I don't mind. I'm used to that by now. I can take it. They also communicate through their cell phones, through an app called Free Space. Sort of like a voice base. No, no, really. It's just like a messenger. It is basically just Facebook Messenger. And you can check up on some of your side quests or sometimes ask your fellow friends about stuff. I don't know. Not. It is kind of fun. They then go on trips to these weird neighboring islands that suddenly can appear out of the Blue Reflection kidding.  And you then collect their memory fragments in these worlds to uncover their dark and tragic backstories. Gameplay. This is just a speedy version of a review. So, like I said, it is very similar to that of an Italian game. The girls wear rings, which makes them reflectors, who can wield magical weapons to battle all the world's demons. Combat is similar to Rises. You wait for your turn, select your move and build up combo points, which essentially means that the longer a battle lasts, the more damage you deal. Combat is complex enough for me, as you have to, for example, cast a barrier to protect your combo if an enemy charges up for a big move. The worlds are varied in different themes, although they don't feel very big. They are beautiful, though. I can say that much. All in all, I actually find myself enjoying my time in this game a lot. I find myself reading every single item and location description in the menus, if that makes sense. I am very involved in this game, and I didn't see that one coming, actually, no. Because I'd never heard about this series before, so it's all new to me. But I feel familiar. I feel like at home, because of my experience from the Atelier series. It runs well on the Switch. It has almost no loading screens. The music is good. The voices sound okay. The graphics are also good. I like them. This game is, however, a bit pricey. I recommend, if you are interested in this game, that you get the standard edition and not the ultimate super pricey edition. Just get the standard, that is enough. Or you could also just put this game on your wishlist and wait for a sale. However, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't mind paying full price for this game. For what it is actually giving me so far. I'm enjoying this game just like I did with Atelier Risa. I love crafting systems, grinding, combats, a bit of conversations, a good story. I find this story to be better than Atelier Risa's story, let's just say. So yeah, I can recommend this game. Have it on your radar and check it out. Now the next game we are going to touch a tiny bit into. I, anyways, I'm not gonna touch too much into it, because... Well, let's just hear what I have to say. Well, I'm talking about Neptunia X-Cendron Kagura Ninja Wars. Developed by ID Factory in Compile Heart and Tamsoft Review Code provided from ID Factory. This game has not hooked me, so I'm gonna make this very short and tell you why that hasn't happened. I have played about half of the story, I feel like. And I have to say it is a bit fun to play mindlessly. I mean, like while you're on the phone. Because it is a sort of hack and slash game, not entirely Musou. Just a mission-based hack and slash game. Where you control your characters, you have four special moves and then some. And you go from start to finish in smaller areas of dungeons. Linear sort of dungeons. They don't take long to finish. They are not very big. And it's all just mission-based from the menu. Sort of. In between the dungeon sections, there are of course the visual novel sort of cutscene parts of the game. The story parts. I don't feel like this is a story that hooked me at all. And you also often meet progression walls where grinding is necessary. Because your characters are often far too low of a level to continue the story missions.  I cannot recommend this game. And I'm very sorry.  That's what I want to say. But basically it is an avoid from me. But it is kind of fun to spam fun skills. That's it. I guess Hamlin will have to do for now. Now to the newest and last. Mary Skelter game. Mary Skelter finale. Finale? What? This is the limited edition. I bought this game myself. Because very pretty. And I like limited editions when they are from Idea Factory. I'm very picky with my limited editions anyways. You know that. This is what I would call a somewhat niche game series, absolutely. With now three games to its name. And all of these games are now found on the Nintendo Switch. The first Mary Skelter being packed in as a bonus in Mary Skelter 2, that is. These games are Dungeon RPGs. Dungeon Crawler RPGs. D C RPG. The games are controlled in first person. You navigate through enormous labyrinths with traps, puzzles and enemies. One could also argue that these games are part visual novels. Because they're very story heavy. Like super big lore of the entire franchise. The lore is enormous. I feel like there's so many characters. They heavily focus on anime presentation cutscenes. The story is kinda complicated. So long story short. Your characters are trapped in an underground city called The Jail. And they try to escape this terrible way of life. By defeating merchants, The Jail's monsters. With the use of blood maidens, which are all representations of fairy tale characters. You have like Cinderella, Tomblina, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood. So I would consider myself kinda new to the series. I have Mary Skelter 1 on the PS Vita. And I have Mary Skelter 2 on my Switch. Which also includes Nightmare Switch is the first one. So yeah, if you buy Mary Skelter 2 on the Switch, you get 1 and 2 in the same sort of deal. But this is the third one, the final one, finale. What can I say about the game?  I lost a bit of sleep over this game. Because I was like, I'm gonna play it just until I reach the next save point. And then I will go to bed, and then I reach the save point. And I'm like, I can do a little more. It is not very hard in the beginning anyways. The game is progressively hard, if that makes sense. The dungeons, the library rints, let's say. They get bigger and bigger the further into the game that you get, of course. But I love the art style. It's the same artist as in Death End Request. I'm excited to play this game more. I find it enjoyable. I can recommend this game already, even though I'm not far into it. It is very cute, niche AF, I know. And the Limited Edition also comes with three freaking novels, like books. I found that to be very surprising. So this is like the lore of the everything. So here you have a little taste of the lore. Three whole novel books with just stories. Story, the history was good. So yeah, very good Limited Edition. It has all the things that you would expect from a Limited Edition. Like artwork, all the cute stuff. So yeah, I think I have now introduced you to three niche JRPGs, which is also something that I cover on this channel. If you are new here, I would like you to subscribe. And of course I would like you to hit like on my video, because that helps out. I have reached 71k subscribers and I want to heartfully thank you all for that. If heartfully is a word. Thank you so much for subscribing to my channel. I love this channel and it is my passion. So thank you so much for watching and I will see you later. I hope you will enjoy at least enjoy Blue Reflection. And also maybe if you're interested, check out Mary Skeletor Finale. You don't have to play the first one or the second one in order to enjoy this one. Same goes with Blue Reflection, because I haven't played the first one. Anyways, I will see you later.