Welcome everyone good morning to another episode of the nonprofit show. We're really excited to have you here with us today because we have as I was saying in the green room chatter the amazing the wonderful the mysterious all add mysterious Katie Warnick CEO president founder guru of staffing boutique. She's going to talk to us today about hiring Tampa labor and that whole ecosystem of staffing. And so this is going to be a really interesting conversation that you're not going to want to miss because I think this is a new topic or it's a revisited topic for so many of us. Again, I'm Julia Patrick CEO of the American nonprofit Academy, Jared ransom nonprofit nerd is off today traveling. She'll be back with us tomorrow. Again, we have amazing partners that allow us to have these conversations day in and day out. Katie, we just surpassed our 900 and like 60, almost 70 episode, and you are part of that because you were the first person that called us and said hey how do I get involved in the nonprofit show. And so we want to express our gratitude to staffing boutique. Also nonprofit thought leader American nonprofit Academy, Bloomerang fundraising Academy at National University, 180 management group, your part time controller nonprofit tech talk nonprofit nerd and JMT consulting. If you have missed any of our episodes, you know where to find us. We have an app. We have the streaming broadcast platforms and we have podcasts. Kevin pace, our executive producer just told us yesterday before we went live that we just had posted our 500th podcast which is pretty. Wow. So, you know, because we started podcasting after broadcasting so it's really an amazing thing time flies when you're having fun Katie. That's right. Katie Warnick, president founder staffing boutique. Before we get into pepper new all these questions. Tell us where you're from where you're where your base of operation. I know you work throughout the country, but you are based at East and talk to us about what your mojo is like what you do at staffing boutique. Oh, I would love to do that. So I live in New Jersey born and raised I'm about 10 minutes from downtown Manhattan where my office is in Tribeca. We do service the New York tri-state area which is New Jersey, New York, the boroughs, and then Connecticut. We also do business in Southern California as well. We do have a reach in some other areas, but the majority of our network and connections are here in this New York metro area. We do everything from temp, temp to firm and permanent recruitment specifically for the nonprofit sector. That's all we do all day long. All we do. So we're constantly recruiting, talking to people, everyone that works in the sector within Charter We do everything from administrative assistance to executive directors, CFOs, substitute teachers, fundraisers, database support, events coordinators, essentially anything within the sector we handle it. So you really get to see behind the curtain when it comes to what the labor market's doing, what nonprofits want and need. You kind of, I would imagine get a lot of this information to nonprofits before they even understand it, right? They'll be like, we need help, we need help. And then I can imagine you're having to kind of give them a lot more information than maybe they ever even thought they needed. Yeah, it's kind of cool. One of the cool things about my job, and I've been in this industry for almost 20 years at this point, I've had my own business for, I think, 13 or 14. But one of my favorite parts of this job has always been just speaking to my clients, not even filling the jobs, not even the sales, not even the networking, not even the making money, just the talking to the clients. Because I get so many after hours calls, sort of offline calls to hear what's going on, what's going on with the board, what's going on with the donors, what's going on with recruitment. And those things are always sort of trending. So it's like I'm having a confidential conversation with one of my clients, I'm having a very similar conversation next week with another client that's saying the same thing. And that's been through, you know, a recession COVID. Now, you know, so it's kind of really cool. And that is my favorite part. So, yeah, I do, I hear everything. I see everything. I could write a book.  I have to represent people who are interested in whichever organization, and if they behave poorly or do something, you know, that's out of character, you know, that's, that's my butt on the line. And I have to take accountability for that. I can never predict how people are going to behave. All I can do is put out the fire as quick as possible. And that's why we provide extreme customer service and really stand on that. I've got to ask this question because we have been in such a wackadoo period of time, you know, from, you know, a global pandemic to civil unrest to financial crisis, a shift in demographics, I mean, the aging of our of our population, a new generation that has different needs and wants, all of this confluence funnels into the labor market. Do you see patterns or is this just all been such a free fall that you're kind of having to ping pong? Yeah, I mean, if we're talking about now, I think we're, we've all been sort of sitting on this edge of waiting for a recession, right? For the past, I don't know, 16 months, I've been saying that we're all kind of in this weird holding pattern.  I was just reading one about Wayfair laying off all their, their remote employees. So, you know, there are certainly trends within the sector and then there's just trends within the labor force, right? So I'm always seeing them, I'm plugging into them and I'm just trying to work with my clients as best as I can to accommodate each and every one of them because every situation is different. You know, I'm working with organizations that are five on staff and I'm working with organizations, you know, that have 15,000 people. So how it's nothing is cookie cutter at this point. No, and you know, it's going to be really interesting to talk to you like this time next year, because we will have like moved through a general election into it. I can't wait. I'm here in inaugural season. The economy who knows we will have that history behind us.  And so I guess that's really leads me to why it's so important for I think us to talk about this whole ecosystem of labor and now looking back into labor. And my first question I think has got to be, how do we determine if we need temp labor and what type versus just saying we got to get a body in here, right? And it seems like it's such a different way to manage your labor force. Yeah, sure. So that's a super duper good question. I would say super duper on the show, but that's a good question. And just to look at what the situation is at hand. You know, if someone is obviously going out on maternity or family leave or disability, anything that you sort of can predict and forecast that's, that's a no brainer to me. I think you should definitely get a temp in there. There is no reason that you should put someone's entire job amongst other staff, right? So I think that that's a no brainer. I think you should definitely hire a temp in that sort of situation. That's the fairly easy fill and especially because you have some, some notice. So you'd be able to even do some cross training if need be with, with that person that's leaving. Okay. The flip side of that is, you know, someone quits all of a sudden. So this is actually where my sweet spot is this is probably where I make the most money. It's when the person in the organization quits unexpectedly, and they were the only person in the organization that did said job. This happens the most, I would say with events and database. Okay. So what happens your database administrator quits on a Friday and tells you they're not giving two weeks notice. What do you do, especially if it's the holiday season, you need to hire a temp.  You can't. You just need these people. You need these, these gifts entered, right? So I think that that's a no brainer. That's another no brainer situation to me.  So I think that those are the areas that you should really look and say, Hey, am I wasting money paying an events person for 12 months of the year? Do we really need a full time events person? Now, some organization are events heavy. So yeah, of course, that's, that's, you have an events team, essentially, you're an organization who's maybe only running like two or three events a year. Temp would be great in that situation. It would bring down your costs. The same thing with grant writers. You know, a lot of organizations that we work with rely on government and maybe some corporate support. Yeah. And then they have a foundation, a small foundation portfolio that they just need to keep up with. So, you know, maybe they only need someone to work 10 hours a month or something like that. You don't need to be paying a full time grant writer to do that. So that's another situation that are common temp jobs. So I would say that that copyrighting, marketing, social media, they don't necessarily need to be full time jobs. You know, it's so interesting because it seems to me like a lot of organizations, and maybe this is just human nature, that we come to the point where like, Oh my God, we got to get a temp worker because, you know, Susie just quit at 435 on a Friday. It's not coming back versus looking at the calendar, looking at our process, looking out, you know, forward. And I have to admit, I think I'm in that boat. I always think of temp work as solving a crisis and not necessarily being part of a strategic plan. Yeah, and I can see why you think that way. And that's why, you know, no situation that we're in is that cookie cutter situation, right? Because an organization that maybe doesn't even have an HR department is going to be my ideal client. You know, the ideal client for me is an organization I'm dealing directly with the executive director or the director of finance and administration where there's no HR process. So they're really relying on me for all recruitment needs. And, you know, I might be expensive, but I'm keeping their recruitment numbers down. You know, so they're not paying the overhead for a recruiter or for advertising for jobs. So, you know, it really depends on the budget, the organization and how heavy that full time staff is. So yeah, you're right. It could be a crisis situation, but it could it could be a long term, make the most sense. So let's move into that because, you know, you said, yeah, this can be expensive, but ultimately, you know, it's a it's a better way to manage the cost of this process. So let's get into this because what should we think about when we're looking at partnering with a temporary agency or even saying, okay, we're going to investigate this. What are the costs look like? Yeah, so that's essentially the first question we ask is how many hours do you need this person to work? Is this a full time job or is this a part time job? So you really need to look at that first. And just keep in mind that someone who wants part time work isn't necessarily going to be the person that's wants full time work and vice versa, right? So you need to think your candidate pool is going to be different for someone who only wants part time hours. Maybe they're getting a master's or something like that. Maybe they're returning back to the workforce after having babies, whatever it might be. So you need to really square down how many hours a week you want this person to be working. Once you have that, obviously it depends on the skill set. So, you know, if we're looking at just to give you an example, seasoned grant writer, bill rate for someone like that could be $100 an hour. So that would include what we're paying them, our fee, unemployment costs, payroll costs, the costs, all advertising, all the recruitment, general liability, disability, and then that person is essentially sitting on our unemployment when and if that project ends or they leave that organization. So that's sort of how it works. Obviously, I can't, you know, an admin assistant could be $25 an hour. It really kind of depends on the skill set, but we are taking on the full burden of the employee. So when you say you're taking, I have so many questions, when you say you're taking on the full burden of the employee, that means that your company, and I'm assuming this is across the sector of staffing, you know, companies, you are in essence, paying that, that you're processing that payroll, you're taking care of all of those administrative aspects of that employee. Correct.  So we've really kind of made it seamless. It's, it's pretty easy to work to get an attempt, you know, started quickly, because there are some organizations that we work with, you know, that it might take them a month to onboard people, and they don't have that time, you know, larger hospitals, larger universities. So they would prefer to bring a temp on. I can have someone start basically in 24 hours if I really needed to. Okay, so then let's talk about another cost. And you mentioned this, training, is this part of, like, the system whereby you know what somebody does and you can, you've like pre-qualified them.  How does that work? Yeah, so essentially when my clients call me, they're calling me because they need someone that doesn't need to be trained, right? So a lot of times the call is, hey, we need someone who knows razor's edge, or they know donor perfect, or they know fund easy. So we then have to go into our database, look at all those people with those specific skill sets, look to see who can start immediately, look to see who's only wants part-time hours, sort of work through all of those logistics. Let's just say we have three people left over after we've done that whole search, we send those three people over to the client, they look at three resumes and then they decide who they want to go with. So the person will already know the skill set at hand.  You know, there are sometimes circumstances where the person, you know, doesn't know a specific module and razor's edge. So maybe they'll just sit on a tutorial or something like that. But for the most part, everyone has the skill set. So they're ready to go. Day one. Ready to go. Hit the ground running. Hit the ground running. Another piece of this before I move on to the next thing, and again, you know, this, I would say this is a cost associated with temp labor is the management of that staff member. Everything from showing up on time to are they dressed appropriately to are they logging in on time, letting them go, adding hours. Who does that work? So essentially the hiring manager would do that work, right? We've had nightmare situations where the person was just always late or the person didn't dress appropriately. So then the organization comes back to me. I have a conversation with them. I have some organizations that won't tolerate that at all. So it's like, okay, you're done for the day and you're gone. It's not the favorite part of my job, but that's also what happens when you're a temp employee. You know, we're basically working for the client.  Personally, I'd rather just replace the person, you know, they've already sort of left a bad taste in the mouth of the organization. So I'd rather just get them a new person and start fresh. So to answer your question, the hiring manager does oversee them, but anything that's difficult or challenging they're going to call me and I'm going to have a conversation with the temp. Wow. It's such a fascinating, I almost want to say way to think about it, right? You know, because I was just talking with a COO of a very large, very, very large $50 million organization. And then we just ended up talking about labor and that person was saying that they're trying to retrain their brains, that when an opportunity comes up or a situation comes up that they're just not like, well, we need to hire somebody. Versus looking at, okay, well, how do we, you know, create our own floaters within our organization or do we contract with the temp company? How do we look at labor in a different way? And this is an organization who's never looked at labor in a different way. And I got to thinking, I mean, knew you were coming on to the nonprofit show today, but I got to thinking this must be a conversation that more people are having. Yeah, I mean, I have, I have thoughts on that because I do feel like larger organizations are more often going to say let's hire someone, let's hire someone. They also have the resources at hand to have more people already working there to give them more responsibilities, right? Sure. A smaller organization who is maybe more hesitant because of budget size to hire a temp probably already has their staff with, you know, running, running pretty thin and it would be, I don't know, not advantageous for them to then give their current staff more work. It kind of leads to burnout. So again, there's no cookie cutter approach to that. It's such an interesting conversation and I think from the way we started our conversation is that it's a changing time. And so labor across the board is just a topic that we're going to be talking about more and more, right? Yeah, but I always lead with, you know, if you don't have a retention strategy, your recruitment strategy is basically nothing. So it's like, what are you doing by giving your current workers more work? That's going to lead to them to probably exit. So you have to also think about that. Yeah, and I appreciate that conversation because that's something we don't have enough. I want to move on and kind of pick your brain a little bit more about this. I mean, you talked to us so beautifully about where you work and how you are navigating different parts of the country. But let's say you're sitting in, you know, Middle America or the Deep South. How would you as a nonprofit go about finding this type of service and forging a partnership with somebody? Yeah, I would say Google temp agencies in my area and then call three or four of them and see how many nonprofits they service. Okay. Working in an organization where I was the only person that did nonprofits within a much larger staffing firm in New York. I learned that pretty quick. They would always say, oh, we do nonprofits, we do nonprofits, but they really didn't have their finger on the pulse of the sector until I came in, right? So you want to make sure that that staffing firm is actually or that temp agency is actually equipped to understand the needs of the sector. Again, so many staffing firms are just so sales minded that they're just going to be like, oh, we can fill that, we can fill that, but they really don't understand. They don't know annual giving. They don't know what fundraising is. They don't understand the different, you know, just job titles within the sector. So you really just need to ask that local agency how often they're working with nonprofits. I love it. I think that's incredibly wise advice because I think you're right.  And generally from what I hear you saying, you're calling kind of in a crisis, like stressful moment anyway. You're just like, help me, help me versus stepping back, right? Yeah, yeah.  You know, we don't have people from other sectors in our database. So we have an equipped database just for your needs specifically. One of my favorite conversations with clients is when an organization reaches out to me and they say they're about to do a search. Yada, yada, yada, can you help? We're calling a few other firms. And then I go over my spiel, have a great call. I do a follow up. And then they say, well, my board member who works at this company has a relationship with this staffing firm. XYZ. Now I know the staffing firm in New York. They don't do nonprofits. They do for, and that's great. They're great at what they do. They do finance. They do accounting. They do Wall Street jobs. That's great. They do not do anything. So then I'm like, all right, good luck.  That firm didn't produce what we needed. They were giving us candidates that had this background and this background. And I'm like, yeah, I know this is actually my favorite phone call.  Right. Well, and you know, Katie, I think we see that in so many ways. And you mentioned, you know, accounting and finance.  It's numbers. And it's like, yeah, not really. The nonprofit sector is different. We have different vocabulary. We have different processes. I mean, there's a lot to be thinking about. And of course we see that with staffing and temp work. You know, this has been an amazing conversation and we don't have that much time left. But I wanted to kind of delve into the time spectrum. Now you started our conversation talking about the changes that we've had because of time and because of the spectrum of change and all the things that we've been going on. They have been going on in our country. But what's the benefit of temp labor long term versus short term? Because is that something that we should be thinking about or just trying to be in the moment and solve the problem? Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. I think that when the economy is sort of uncertain, which I feel like we are now, it's always a good idea to hire temps first to get the work done. Not have to pay these people benefits, not have to pay, you know, 401ks, et cetera, whatever it is, get them working, get the work done. And then if you like them, go ahead and hire them or keep them on as, you know, who knows through election here, whatever you need to do that makes sense for your organization. So I think that long term could be a good idea. The only bad thing about keeping someone on long term is if someone is really good, they're actively looking for a full time job with benefits. So if you're not committed to them, they're really not committing to you. So, you know, while temp to perm is great, I preach that through and through, especially with the nonprofit sector. If you're saying like, I'm not going to consider this person until next year. Well, that person might get a good job offer in three months and they're going to leave, you know, there's really no marriage there. So it kind of depends on how you look at it. Some organizations will just say, listen, we need to get through this fiscal year. Do I have a commitment that you're going to stay on board through this fiscal year as a temp? And then we can look at a proper offer when we hit the new fiscal year.  But again, every case is different. Every person situation is different. What is the average length of time that an organization in your experience works with a temp? I would say three to six months. Really? Okay. Yeah, because the way that most staff agencies work and certainly how mine is is essentially after six months of time. The organization has essentially worked the full amount as a temp where they're at that point able to go on to that for that organization's payroll for free. So they wouldn't owe us a conversion fair finders fee at that point. Pre six months, they would owe us a percentage of the salary. So a lot of organizations will take advantage of doing that. Now, when you look at the numbers from a finance perspective, it is more expensive to do it that way because you're paying our fees over a longer period of time. Most good nonprofit accountants will be like, let's take this person right away. But sometimes the numbers don't work that way and they do have to wait for the new fiscal year. So again, every organization is different. Do you see more organizations saying this is a good way for us to ease somebody in to see if they're going to be a good fit for us or if we need them and we need their labor? That's always been. That's across the board. It's never been really a question. It's been since I've entered this sector. Interesting. But what I think that most people don't understand is, especially here in New York, our offices are extremely small.  So this is a great way to trial someone, you know, we don't have a huge amount of space in our organization's offices. You want to make sure that that person isn't heating up tuna in the microwave every day at noon, you know, you want to make sure that you really like the person, not because of their skill set, but just because of their office manners, if you will. So there's so many times that we place temps where the organization has said this is just going to be a temp job, you know, there's no room and then someone, you know, quits or gets fired in another department and they just were like, oh, we love this person and they kind of move them, you know, they're working in development and they move them to programs or, you know, really within they just really like the fit. Interesting. It's such a fascinating thing and I always, always love talking to you because I feel like you're one of our consistent guests who comes on, and that the environment is always different, right. Things are changing so much. And so it's never a broken record with you. It's always something new and different in relationship to what is going on in our marketplace. And so I really appreciate your wisdom and your willingness to share with us and our viewers. Again, Katie Warnock, president and founder of staffing boutique, staffing boutique.org. Check out their website. It's just great. There's a rock and picture of Katie on there and it talks about her and you're, I think you're in the city. It seems it looks like. Yes, I'm in Soho. That's good. Yeah, it's a great image and it's a great story. But it's just been such a pleasure to work with you and get your wisdom. As you, like I said, as you share with us, it's just a remarkable thing because I think a lot of people, especially in such a competitive environment, they're hesitant to share their secrets because they feel like they're going to lose business. And with you, you're always very open and transparent. So we recognize that and we appreciate it. Yeah, I'm certainly a voice in the sector. It's crazy. So I'm happy to share my stories. It's a great thing. It's a great thing. And like I said, you know, both Jared and I see the changes and so it's never, it's never a dull moment with you or something new and different. Another thing that is amazing in our world is the support that we have from our presenting sponsors and they include Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Staffing Boutique with Katie Warnick, Your Part-Time Controller, 180 Management Group, Fundraising Academy at National University, JMT Consulting, Nonprofit Nerd and Nonprofit Tech Talk. These are the folks that are with us day in and day out. Katie, as we end every episode, we like to say this message and I know you're getting on a plane traveling across country shortly, but we want to share this message with you as well. And that says to stay well so you can do well. My friend, thank you very, very much. Always a pleasure.


Hi, this is Yvonne and this is a service design show and this is episode 199. The guest joining us today on the show is Yvonne Tran. Yvonne is currently the director of product design at The New York Times. Now some say that design is currently going through a crash or maybe even a crisis. Now whether or not that label is accurate it's a fact that we've been seeing a lot of layoffs happening lately and highly respected agencies are closing down studios where in the past years it was all about growth. So crisis or not there's definitely something going on. Yvonne's perspective is that the design industry is going through a major shift. In the last decade we've invested heavily in teaching people around the world how to fish. Many non-designers were exposed to the basic concepts of the design process and the design language surrounding it. It's great that today there's much more recognition than there was for design let's say 10 years ago and that more and more people understand and speak the language of design. But this also begs the question what does this mean for you as a design professional now that design has been more democratized? Is there still a meaningful role you can play and if so in which areas can you add the most value? Well that's precisely what we're going to explore in today's conversation with Yvonne. We'll look into where design is moving away from and heading towards. We'll discuss the three roles where design professionals can continue to add tremendous value in the future and explore what we can do to help our clients also grow to the next design maturity stage. One part of the conversation that I found especially intriguing was when Yvonne shared the story about how we by slowing things down deliberately could actually be of great value to our organizations even though slowing things down feels very unnatural and uncomfortable at first. I'm curious about your take on this perspective so please join me for the inspiring conversation with Yvonne and as always I'll catch you at the end for the closing reflections. My name is Marc Fontaine and you're listening to the service design show. Welcome to the show Yvonne. Hey Marc good to be here. Episode 199 how does that feel?  Before we reached 200 just the number but then again yeah it's been running for quite a while and happy that you're on for this special episode. Yvonne besides having a really Dutch name we'd love to know a little bit more about you and what you do these days. Could you give us 30 second intro into who you are? Yeah of course. I'm currently the product design director at the New York Times and I manage a team of product designers and service designers to do work on internal tools to help our customers as well as to help our team but previously I kind of had like a winding kind of career path all of it related to being able to tell stories in different ways. Start-up in non-profit was really into mission-driven work and then moved into you know moved got into kind of design strategy service design more formally and so I have a combination of working in consulting mostly in you know with big innovation company or innovation teams and companies as well as like in government and then wanted to go in-house because I really wanted to really see the follow through of the impact of the work. And you mentioned that you had a wine you wrote in your career and at some point you also stumbled upon service design I always like to ask this question do you remember when you first sort of heard about service design? I think that like you know I first heard about service design when I was in my design MBA program and I realized that design and service design aligned so much with the way I work and the values I have already developed independently of me understanding the more formal concepts and I was already doing a lot of that in my work you know like the whole participatory research when I was in non-profit work user research just it feels natural you know it feels very logical to be able to talk to the people being affected by the problem to kind of create solutions for them so I just remember feeling like wow I cannot believe there's a discipline out there that already aligns to what how I work you know and I didn't have to like squeeze it into you know into the way that my value system was so so that was that was pretty great and meeting other service designers that you know everybody naturally had a strategic mindset which was really fun to kind of be able to work with really really smart people all the time. Yeah I think a lot of us can relate to how you got into service design at some point you sort of know oh this is something we can actually look up on Google and there are people who do this thanks thanks for sharing Yvonne we have a lightning round five questions I'm always playing around with these questions to figure out which ones work and which ones are interesting to get to know you you haven't prepared yet which is good first thing that comes to your mind are you ready yes I am here cool cool what's the food that makes you think of home think of home um my mom makes this really good like chicken noodle soup and in in Vietnamese it's called foga and it's like it's kind of like Vietnamese noodle beef noodle soup if you're familiar with it but it's like chicken and so it's very hearty clear broth it's very homey so it makes me think of home a lot we're going to up the game a little bit with the next question what's one thing you wish you would have known soon in life or in life in life that you know not to take the major at an undergraduate very seriously and just do what makes you enjoy learning and get good grades because you do not know what the future holds because there are jobs out there and careers out there that you could not conceive of as like a 17 18 year old um so so I guess that's something that I sometimes think about around uh around just the time spent kind of in school and trying to find the perfect career it's at such a young age good advice um speaking talking about life advice what's a book is there a book that has impacted your life oh that's a lot of books i'm a big reader um I read a lot of fiction um but recently um I've been uh I've been reading um reading sweetgrass by Robin walk uh Kimmer um and she's this indigenous scientist um and she just has a very different way of looking at the world right from from that kind of more of a nature ecological life kind of lens um about everything on earth and it kind of kind of really mixes it with the western you know kind of science that she has learned and been trained in so yeah I feel like the that book really was beginning to kind of change the world that changed the way I see like and relate to like everything from rocks to deer to like you know that it's not so human centric all the time all right uh that book has been recommended a few times already on the show so amazing yeah we need to check it out uh question number four maybe an easy one who's someone you'd like to take out for lunch I think if she was alive the author Octavia Butler um she writes a lot of speculative fiction and she has a amazing world building in the way that she um thinks about the world from a um a lens that's not so male all the time um in speculative fiction um and has really just amazing ways of also looking at the world and thinking about the world um so so yeah I mean she died very young I feel like she died in her 50s so it'd be great to be able to have lunch with her and to kind of talk to her about her writing you're almost there fifth and final question what do you feel our world needs more I think right now the world needs a lot more connection to each other um the humanity I think in each other um and to remember that and to see that um in people and not just on screens noted all right thank you and good for you making it to the end of this rapid fire lightning round um Yvonne you wanted to address and discuss the topic of the relationship between design and designers and innovation how so why is that a topic that's on your mind I got very familiar with this innovation space um when I was in grad school about 10 to 12 10 to 12 years ago in San Francisco so this was the advent of Lyft uber all these big companies coming out of the of California specifically San Francisco and I got exposed to a lot of it and everybody you know was saying all these words right design thinking was still a buzzword it was paired up with innovation often times lean innovation like so many books so many things written about it and you know I feel like I was like oh what is this about kind of got enchanted by by all the all the buzz um and I got an opportunity to work in the mayor's office of civic innovation in San Francisco as an innovation fellow and um for you know when I was in school and just kind of saw how that worked in government and I saw how it worked in companies you know while I was being exposed at school and and then I ended up working for a boutique consulting agency um that worked with innovation teams like Nike um like Cox like um and so I also got exposed from the corporate like realm of like how they see innovation um and then I also got to manage a digital and innovation team when I was at a mortgage finance company um my last job and I guess all to say like you know we talked about at the time as design thinking service design as like one of the keys to innovation and it was always under the framework of of um of kind of like what the corporate model was you know which was really to find new products new services but at the end of the day it was it was really about you know creating different types of revenue streams and so uh what I was interested in is like seeing like oh what was actually the role of the designer in this process you know um and and what what does design thinking kind of promise um or and design what did it promise and and did it fulfill its promise so I was just kind of interested in that you know um and I think also what I've observed just personally observed in the last I don't know five years to maybe eight years is that the word innovation and innovation teams are not as prevalent as it used to be it's you know in the last like yeah maybe the last five years um in the team that I was supporting when I was over at my last company and at a mortgage finance company they dissolved that team you know um and so and then with then with IDEO recently laying off like a bunch of folks in the last few years closing doors of very iconic offices in Palo Alto in New York like it's just been really interesting to kind of see where the industry is going um and how companies and organizations are seeing the role of quote innovation and therefore a lot of times the role of design thinking and design um and so I just wanted to kind of explore that a little bit more and to be like well what what is the role now where does that where does that live right um and maybe it's not called innovation in the way that we were thinking about it 10 years ago there's so much to unpack already let's um let's start with you mentioned the promise of design and design thinking what do you feel was the promise would do the quote unquote we promise I and you know I feel like coming from consulting to consulting promise is a lot of things um you know if you're trying to hire a consulting company I I think in general you know what the promise was was if you have a designer to bring the user or the people's voice into the process right um strategize you generate some kind of ideas and it's going to lead to some kind of innovation promise land you know like just we say it all the time and and to certain extent it's still true right from a process standpoint like trust the process trust the process right it's just like don't worry it's very overwhelming right now and it's very ambiguous but you know at the end we're we're gonna it's gonna happen don't worry and and at the end did it you know like was the problem statement that we were trying to solve and refine for was that the actual problem because a lot of times what these companies are looking for are brand new ways to make money you know and it doesn't always need to be a transformational thing and and and sometimes it's not even always like a a a product service to pain point match right and how high is the actual pain point or are we kind of fabricating it because it fits within the portfolio you know um and so I guess you know my kind of big question around these like broken promises really you know and I think this is also why companies have been scaling back on quote innovation have been eliminating their design education programs or design thinking there's so many articles written right by like fast company and others design thinking is dead and blah blah blah you know um and and so then when you peel back all of that you know how many releases or tests or pilots really did feel innovative and and I know that a lot of it is this like well we have to fail fast and we got to just do a lot and increase the quantity and I guess for me it's like I was also taught that right like I think that you know testing it decreases risk which I do truly believe but I'm also like what is the content of these quote innovative ideas that we're testing you know what is the quality of it really and what is the you know and and so um I I think that like you know one kind of story that really sticks my mind to this day was when I was consulting with a telecommunications company really big one and they hired a bunch of us um and at the kickoff one of the one of the executives kicked off this big room full of his team lots of people was just like I'm so excited let's make the next billion dollars and and it's and I just remember thinking like wow like I get it I know that there's a bottom line you know we're in this like system right capitalist system making money but that was kind of the big motivating closing sentence that he gave to his team um and and so then I think that like innovation has become a misnomer for a new or more effective revenue streams versus defining it as a true product or service fit to a pain point you know to really like improve lives do you feel that that's currently shifting or do we need to revise that like okay so what does that what's the impact on us right I think we have to really look past the sexiness of innovation you know from from 10 years ago you know and that has trickled down to even the most traditional companies now um and kind of like remove that sheen and really think about what is quote innovation really mean and it just really means a different way of thinking or a different way of doing something and I personally feel and I always thought this even when I was in the space that like what does it make other people who work in these places if there's a team dedicated to innovation you know are they chopped liver are they just people who are not originators you know original thinkers like no right there shouldn't be one team you know that that is dedicated thinking about new things and so I think that in terms of of where we are now or where I think we are is that I think we need to be able to like take that away take that like sheen that shininess away and really look at that innovation often is is making mark pivots or refinements to existing products and services like we as humans build on top of each other you know and and whether we're redesigning a service or redesigning like a product it really rarely is a transformational product you know even if it feels transformational like the way that uber and lift and door dash and all this stuff felt that way but the core content is is the same you know it's existed for many many many decades and generations um and and so I think that like you know even looking at the most decorated design company apple with the other than you know they've designed some really innovative products like the macintosh mouse but I think in recent memory a lot of their innovations have happened over existing products of really rethinking that particular experience but the content of it has been there for a very long time um and so and so I think that like you know it kind of gets into me thinking about like what is the role of the designer you know a little bit more um about like where innovation is now you know and I talked about ideo um and I it is you know I think about like they are the most popular right they've really been able to they're the most famous right tim brown the books the talks like the workshops all that kinds of stuff um and with with the kind of like where they are company right now um you know the current ceo says that a lot of it's due to you know product project budgets pandemic and the widespread adoption of design thinking um and they essentially built a business of teaching others how to fish and thus made them all fishermen's who don't need one anymore and I actually think that's a really good thing you know I think that you know even though it's not a great business model essentially eventually for them and that they need to figure out how to successfully pivot um but it's a good thing because design thinking just like innovation should be accessible to all as like a problem solving process um so you know so that kind of makes me think like well if everyone does know design thinking because you know they even have certification programs now out there with like luma and like all these other kind of programs which um is a great starter I don't know if it necessarily makes you like automatically like a service designer you know um but like so if everyone can do this design thinking well what is the role of a designer then that kind of makes me think about that you know because I think designers have in the past been seen as like these um these catalysts right that start these processes that provide a catalyst to quote innovation or to at least a different way of thinking and maybe that's what we need to be humbled about is that if we have the expectations to create transformational things services products then maybe that is not where we need to start from I think we need to be a bit more humbled and be like and be from a learner in a growing mindset of like well what are we actually trying to do and what are we actually trying to solve and how are we changing the way even think about this particular problem and not kind of promise I guess you know that there is going to be something you know very I don't know just amazing and sexy at the end yeah before we go into specifics I'm just really curious to to your personal story here out of all the things that you could be thinking about right now and all the challenges that we have in our world what makes this relevant to you why why is this on your mind right I guess you know I recently had a conversation um with one of our our kind of mutual friends uh Grace and about just this observation around innovation you know because you know she was talking about some strategic foresight and other kinds of more firms like really smaller boutique firms I was doing kind of this like futurist innovation design kind of work a lot of them were closing down and that just kind of made me reflect um and reflect on like where I am in my career and I'm not in a formal innovation role or anything I don't think there's even that role at my company at all or team um but then maybe reflect on like my past roles and maybe think about like how do we value the work that we do how do we value the design work that we do when when there are not a lot of sexy labels you know um you know to that um and are we also doing what we think are the most important work you know so I guess it was kind of encapsulating that where you know I gravitate towards work that I'm excited about and at the time and in my career it was in this like innovation space because it was a lot about new ideas new services new ways of thinking new experiences that we're creating um and that was really exciting to me um and now I guess I'm a place too in my thinking and in my career where I just want to be able to create really quality experiences you know that are inclusive and accessible um and that at the end of the day may not feel traditionally sexy but it really changes lives so um while you were sharing this I was reflecting on what the paradigm that I've been seeing the shift and the thing that came to my mind is that maybe 10 years ago 15 years ago um maybe even five years ago design and design thinking was in the man because it was different just for the sake of being different doing things in a in a new way like you said sexy I think just the fact that it was different made it attractive that is changing that is shifting being different isn't uh isn't adding the value that we're looking for and I'm also seeing the same shift as you are that many of the service design professionals I speak to don't have a innovation role specifically don't have a service design role they're just part of the organization and contributing in different ways that aren't about innovating but are actually about doing better things and doing things better so yeah uh yeah what do you what do you think about that mark I think it's a great great uh development um the moment things things move out of the space of new innovative sexy and into the mundane ordinary that's a really good that's a really good thing because then it becomes uh like common household what's the what's the right word I'm looking for here it becomes it it's accepted and it it becomes a default practice and you know I can't say that it's happening on a on the scale that I wish it was but it's definitely shifting yeah so to get back to your comment about this if in the early days of design and design thinking it was about doing things in a different way if that was the value proposition and that's not going to cut it anymore and I don't think designers were the ones who were pushing that message it was really a demand from business to innovate um to have a message to communicate marketing but if that's moving to something else what is our new role as as a as a design community one I I agree with you I think that when things become part of the everyday practice um that's what we all wanted right you know like to have this design mindset to for everyone to have that product business executives and that we were not the only lone people in the room just like yelling and and trying to convince everyone um that this is the right thing to do um so it's great it's it's really amazing in that way where people are just naturally thinking about users even engineers you know wanting to hear about user feedback now and not just think that they know what's best I heard a lot of comments in my career about stakeholders saying it's common sense we don't need to do research it's just common sense and us just trying not to tear our hair out about that so it is really great um I and and I also think too what's really been amazing for me to back up a little bit before I talk about what I think the role of designers are role of design is that service design has now become this integral part of all design most if not all design practices right um you know I'm I'm I'm in like a product design group now and focus on creating and developing software um when before I was much more in the research and strategy space um developing products that were not related to the digital products um and it's been an interesting and amazing to see that a lot of our product designers you know at the New York Times use service design regularly on a deep deep level too from folks who are mid-level all the way up to very principal you know designers um are using different forms of service design to really push forth because the systems in in the ecosystem and the world we live in is so complex now and even for example at last year and was hiring principal service designers as full-time roles you know where I think a lot of these technology companies which I feel like in the past like 10 years ago they didn't even know what that was I mean they almost didn't even know what design thinking was so I mean you know so I think now the maturity of how designers and leaders and design leaders have pushed and pushed um you know and and where it now becomes an ambiguous part of our product our career framework that's part of our product design career framework service design you know and and so I think that like that's a really great thing and it's like really amazing to see how um you know how diverse and how deep that we're getting um in in design um and and so I think that like you know product designer service designer design strategist like all these kinds of folks I feel like essentially for me the world designer is a kind of like threefold one is kind of like diving first um head first in a complexity um and the abstract and to pull out tangible actual direction I think we can kind of like I've understood that the second is is obviously very important to take all the stakeholders with you on the ride including teaching them all how to fish so we can all fish one of our our kind of low-key jokes um that I have with my colleagues is that like you know um that they begin because there's not enough designers there's not enough service designers to go around there's not enough designers to go around really you know it's underfunded um like most places and so we think about what if the product managers or you know our stakeholders start doing and running their own design projects and we just kind of help them you know because there's not enough of us to go around and so then there's always constant like tension about resourcing and so I still think it's a good thing because if they start thinking about it in that way that also means it makes our job easier to be honest because we can actually start asking more nuanced questions um deal with much more complex issues and not just try to teach them what a design process is and why we need to do research and all these basic things that I think we've been fighting for for a long time um and so I think that like it's really important as part of the process that takes stakeholders with you um and then the last thing which I think is something that I thought about a lot more which is is the slow things down to build better services and products and I know the initial reaction and even for me when I thought about this my initial reaction was like that feels antithetical to what product ones and what business ones like we're trying to ship things we're trying to release things like why would you want to say that that's literally what we've been fighting against right I've gotten so much in my career of like why do you need so much time to do this research why do you need so much time to do the synthesis like can you just turn this around in two weeks as project like I don't understand why it's so hard you talk to like 10 people you know um and we're always trying to fight against that right being like okay we're trying to move as fast as we can but I guess what I'm I'm really saying and clarifying is that the the point of a designer is not to stop progress or innovation or to be a blocker but I see a designer's role is to stop and ask the crucial questions you know like why are we doing this now what is the actual business value do we actually need to do this like right now right now like what is the actual what what is why is there a hurry you know why do we need to move so fast have we included all the voices that we need to actually in the process and have we considered what we're building is inclusive and accessible so this actually makes me think a lot about the like button you know when we when I'm talking about slowing down and asking questions is when the team that worked on this really fun new feature that increased engagement by like a thousand you know by a hundred times I'm sure based on the speed and based on the obviously the company who released it they were moving very fast the team doesn't necessarily think about the implications down the line of its impact on the suicide rate of teenage girls right like whoo heady stuff like it's it's not something that's like very naturally related but at the same time it it's not that far off in terms of thinking about what the ramifications are when yes it's about increasing engagement but what does it actually mean in terms of from a from a psychological standpoint from a societal standpoint right of of this mass platform seeing how many likes meaning you're more popular is that you know what are the ethical questions there and I just feel like just like in science right just because we can build it and we can do it doesn't mean we should and I just strongly feel like as designers we need to be asking these questions because we are the ones oftentimes thinking ahead one of the few folks on the team thinking ahead whether you're a product designer or a service designer or doing both all of it together is that that's just the function of our process of like we just need to think ahead so that we are able to like have something for engineers to work on or think ahead as if we're doing a service design project to be like what are the ideal experiences that we're designing for all these different things that we're the ones asking the question so I think that we really need to take that very seriously and be able to ask these questions because something as small as like just a little like button it's not that big of a deal it's going to increase engagement we're going to win all these awards all this stuff but like what are the actual implications of that you know from a from a people kind of perspective and so I guess that's kind of like what I'm kind of thinking about is that designers are the check and balance to the whole move fast and break things you know ethos and and so so you know I think that like it's important to take that into consideration is to be able to like pause and work on your persuasion and communication skills to also have your stakeholders be with you to take a breath and to really evaluate like why are we kind of working on this and I know that it's not applicable and it's really hard to do in most all cases but I I do think for some of these more you know bigger features bigger releases thinking about this is kind of crucial I think it's the exact title of the episode we had a few episodes ago with George a about whether or not we should do things instead of just asking the question can we do it should we do it this is a much harder sell compared to selling a different way of working that's fun creative playful so much easier selling the fact that we're now stepping into the role of the conscious of the organization or and that we potentially might slow things down you know that that's it's it's not easy to communicate that message it was it was easier 10 years ago 15 years ago a look at where we are right now right we sort of have to press a reset button and I think realign the expectations that we have as a design community of the value that we bring and also realign the expectations of the people who are hiring us yeah that is that's always been the job though mark right even when it was new and now getting into much more of a deeper maturity as design has always been the work that and and to be honest I've in the past kind of resented that job you know because I'm a bit impatient um but that's part of the whole teaching them all how to fish or at least knowing visually how to do it if they themselves are not doing it themselves um and and I think now stepping into a role where I think that from our previous kind of like conversation around it being ubiquitous design you know um that mostly everybody or most executives have now heard of design or at least design thinking um and and then now there are more you know executive design roles even you know um which is an indication of where we're at um as design leaders um yeah I I also I just think that like how corporations are operating you know I think designers have a really really big role to play around this question asking and not just execution um and and to be able to ask these questions because I do honestly think that the more we ask and the and the rigor of our questions are going to lead to better experiences and better services and better products um because we're going to be solving for the right problems and not just the ones that are the quickest to solve um and and give us the most benefit in the short term but I think that the most benefit in the long term if we uh make the assumption that the work that we do is is demand driven and again going back to the fact innovation and having something new to present that was the demand of business and that's what we cater to what can we do right now to increase the demand or accelerate the demand now it's increasing the demand for this new thing or this shift that we have to offer of being maybe the conscious of the organization or understanding and uh removing complexity what what do you what do you what do you think we can do to to bring this closer in the next five years you mean increase the demand for this this type of of role of a designer yeah if this is what we want to do and if this is what we believe where we add the most value it would be nice if people actually start hiring us for that kind of work I know I know more service design titles I I'm with you and an actual service design framework like job framework um I mean I think we need to we need we need to start where our our stakeholders or our partners are at you know you know in a lot of ways I think that you can open the door but people need to walk through it and I think that we need to make the door the windows the house very very enticing um and I think how to do that is by using I think our ability to be strategic thinkers to be visual thinkers when a lot of people as it turns out are not in terms of at least visual thinking um use it to help them sift through the complexity of their work I have seen it um I've seen it work a lot you know where they don't quite understand why you're making such a massive blueprint or they don't know they're like okay you're just making some kind of map I guess um making a process map um and then when you actually walk them through that and you kind of show them what these gaps are and even as simple as aligning one team on what the problem is using the some kind of mapping it changed the whole outlook of how they see design that designers are not just people who do a bunch of research and then maybe make some kind of thing that they can ship um or make some kind of map that's all that's all we do is make maps and then ship stuff you know um and and I think that like we are doing all of those things you know um and I think just giving them a small piece of how they themselves can untangle their work a little bit more in their minds and even align and stop going in circles about what the actual problem is or how something operates because we're able to like map that out and like get that information and synthesize it and to be fair in a quick amount of time you know um I think that's that's like the door opening a bit you know is that we're kind of giving them a peek into like what this could be and how we could use these skills and this thinking to help them kind of be able to streamline to be able to like think about problems differently and to be able to think about people at the end of the day and not just what the kpi is not just what that necessarily like you know feature is or the functionality of things but really the people who are using and experiencing you know the product or the service so I guess for me I this is you know like most things start small because change at the end of the day is incremental especially if you're at a bigger company um a bigger organization and and and I guess it's a circle back around on about innovation and I think now innovation and it is change right we just kind of like concluded that part in our conversation that innovation has changed inherently and I think sustainable change you know for most things is incremental and being able to argue in incremental ways and persuade them to think about and have more of a designer mindset is going to feel much more doable than just being like you know talk about service design and be like this is the amazing thing about certain look at all these artifacts look what we can do for you and it's just like that's a lot they don't even understand some of these basic concepts a lot of times you know and I think what they what most folks want at their jobs is just to like do their jobs better and easier so how can we help them do that how can we help them bring that to to our teams I have one personal question as we're heading towards the end of this conversation um you mentioned uh that you're that you don't have a lot of patience and change takes time it's compounding it's incremental could you share with us how do you measure success for yourself how do you know that you're making progress if if it takes time and you're impatient and you want to see yeah that's that's a great question mark it makes me think about um i've been reflecting a bit about the the team that i sit on right now at the new york times is i said i work with the customer care team they're an amazing group of people um and who basically um is the operations technology team to support our our care agents who help our customers solve problems and i think about when i i first joined um we had two designers um and then when i joined they hired they hired two more um along with me and those two designers were you know we're we're doing design work but it was at kind of in a more execution manner you know like whatever the product managers decided to put together um you know they're the ones that kind of try to solve some of those problems and so they were they were they can be fairly narrow because of that right very like you know focused and narrow the research was was that way too um and then most importantly they did not know what service design really was they did not know what like the design can serve as a strategic capability um and and so i came in and through many conversations and some a lot of growing pains um and a lot of it was just building trust and demonstrating impact and when i say demonstrating impact it was um basically each sprint each quarter kind of showing like this is why we needed um to like to do all this user research this is why we needed to map the journey of an agent you know this is why you know and we did a whole project on like how do we ensure the morale of agents um you know with this we we had a whole kind of like reorganization you know of the way that we organize the team and stuff like that so how do we how do we keep that up and so like that work yielded direct impact you know to our ops team um of like what recommendations what frameworks can be used to make sure the team health is is very good so i think it was just over time um and and building a lot of trust and building relationships there and and now you know i i feel like i don't need to push as hard really um you know within our okay ours even to to be like what is the design work here and it went from not seeing what design work in our okay ours i don't like really like really struggling to now it's implicit like we know what that looks like they know what that looks like and it's part of the okay ours and so i guess kind of in a qualitative way in measurement like that's how i've seen it and then in a in a quantitative way even now we're looking at experiential metrics how do we measure experiences on the on the kind of like software that we're building so so i i think there's there's a lot of different kinds of like uh signals and that's um at least as my interpretation on a on an organizational level but for your personally so again change can take time how do you know that you are going in the right direction is is kind of looking at at those signals like you know if if to sum it up i mean if the okay ours that we have right or the goals that we have for the team no longer require so much of my persuasion and finessing of like this is how design me just trying to convince all the stakeholders like well this is how design can help you do these goals but really they've already thought about it and they already know what initiatives design is going to work on like that's great that is amazing that means that we they understand our capability and that we're not just these execution monkeys right and that like they understand the holistic nature of design and service design and the capability that we kind of like provide for them and the team to help accomplish our goals even um when we walk away from this conversation and and our campfire what do you hope is one thing we never forget from this moment what do you hope we take away with i hope we take away that innovation and design is not an exclusive sport and that the people who have been practicing it for a lot longer you know people who are designers and people who are service designers you know have a place in in being able to to i think you called it like being the the the conscious humans you know in the group to ask some of these critical questions and that like one if you are being asked those questions those critical questions i hope that you're not defensive i hope that you know you take that with an open mind of like curiosity because that's where the designer is coming from um and then i think that if you are the designer to not be afraid to ask because at the end of the day that's our job to do that um and i know there's an immense amount of pressure on you and on design teams to produce and to have results and impact um but i i think in the long run we're not going to have a big impact you know from a business standpoint and also from a societal standpoint if we are not asking these questions and not being afraid i think we need to be fearless um in our curiosity and in being and in asking these critical questions being fearless in our curiosity if there ever was a sentence to put on a t-shirt that's going to be the one Yvonne thanks so much for sharing your journey and uh trials and tribulations with us today uh very curious uh how this conversation would go in five years time uh maybe we'll need to do a revisit so thanks again for coming on and uh being here with us thanks mark it was a lot of fun thanks for having me awesome that you're still with me for the closing reflections here's a key message that i'll be taking away from our conversation the fact that distinct innovation roles are disappearing is actually a sign of maturity for our practice innovation isn't and shouldn't be something that's exclusive to a certain group within an organization and when we can direct innovation again towards true innovation rather than an excuse only to make more money will be golden the other thing that Yvonne said and which honestly deserves its own t-shirt is that we must stay furiously curious amen to that if you've enjoyed today's conversation you can do me one big favor click the like button on this video if you haven't done so already not to feed the youtube algorithm but to let me know whether we're on the right track by addressing topics like this finally before we part ways please take a moment to reflect and celebrate by joining us today you've directed your attention towards learning and growing as a professional so from everyone who you're going to impact through your work thank you for taking the time and making the commitment my name is mark from time and I look forward to having you with us again for a new conversation on the service design show take care and see you soon


In general, finding a solution to a system of linear differential equations is algorithmic and tedious. As such, it's best left to brainless objects and mindless drones. A more important question is long-term behavior. So let's consider that if we have the phase plane for a system, we can predict long-term behavior. Suppose we pick any point in the phase plane and use that as the starting point of a trajectory. There are three possibilities for the trajectory. First, maybe you've been fantastically lucky and you've picked a fixed point and the trajectory goes nowhere. Second, maybe you've picked a point where the trajectory starting from that point will go off to infinity. Or maybe the trajectory goes towards a fixed point. So as far as long-term behavior at this point is concerned, we might care about whether we are at a fixed point and go nowhere, whether we go off to infinity, or whether we go towards a fixed point. To decide on the long-term behavior, remember that in general our system will have solutions that are given as linear combinations of exponential functions multiplied by the eigenvectors. And to begin with, let's suppose that our eigenvalues are distinct and real. And let's consider those eigenvalues. Now if all of these eigenvalues are negative, then as t goes to infinity, these exponential components will all go to zero, which means that x is going to go to v0, our fixed point. And since this will happen regardless of where we start, then our fixed point is stable. On the other hand, if any of these eigenvalues is greater than zero, then as t goes to infinity, the corresponding exponential component will also go to infinity, and so x will go to infinity, and the fixed point is unstable. In fact, we can go one step further. Let lambda m be the largest eigenvalue. If lambda m is greater than zero, then the exponential component corresponding to that largest eigenvalue will go to infinity the fastest, and so x will go to infinity in the direction of the corresponding eigenvector. So let's consider our system of differential equations. We'll sketch our phase plane. We'll sketch our two nullclines. Find the direction vectors on the nullcline. Find the direction vectors in each of the regions. And previously, we sketched some trajectories, but now we have a little bit more information. We know how to find the eigenvectors, so let's do that. So the thing to remember is that the characteristic polynomials for a homogeneous system include all roots of the non-homogeneous system, which means our eigenvalues and eigenvectors will be the same. We can ignore these constants and solve for our homogeneous system. So we find our eigenvalues will be minus 5 and 2. For lambda equal minus 5, the eigenvector is found by row reducing, which has solutions x2 equals 3, x1 equals minus 1, and so the eigenvector is minus 1, 3. And similarly, for lambda equals 2, our eigenvector is 2, 1. And this gives us our general solution, where v0 represents our fixed point. Now we'll graph those eigenvectors around the fixed point. As t goes to infinity, the component of our solution parallel to minus 1, 3 is going to be some constant e to power minus 5t times the vector at minus 1, 3, which will tend to the 0 vector. It's as if this component fades away. Meanwhile, the component of our solution parallel to 2, 1 is c2 e to power 2t times 2, 1, which will tend to infinity, which means that this component of our solution will become more and more and more important, essentially becoming the only part of our solution. What this means is that as t goes to infinity, our trajectories will tend to be parallel to the second eigenvector. And so we can give our trajectories a little bit more detail. So the trajectory starting here will move downwards, but then they'll run parallel towards the second eigenvector, so they may look something like this. The trajectory that starts near this isocline will move to the right, but as t goes to infinity, it will become more and more parallel to the eigenvector v2. And so it may look something like this. What if we actually start a trajectory close to this eigenvector v1? So remember the component of the solution that's going to be parallel to the vector minus 1, 3, that first eigenvector, is going to go to zero. So we're going to close in on the fixed point. However, as we do that, remember this component is going to go to infinity, so this component is going to get larger and larger. So we close in on the fixed point along v1, but we move away from it parallel to v2. So our trajectories will look something like this. Because the trajectories move towards the fixed point parallel to one eigenvector, but away from it along another, we say that we have a hyperbolic fixed point. What if some of our eigenvalues are complex? Since a complex eigenvalue a plus or minus bi corresponds to a solution of the form e to power ata cos bt plus b sin bt, the trigonometric terms will produce a trajectory that circles a fixed point. What happens to that trajectory depends on the value of a. If a is greater than zero, the exponential component will grow without bound, and so our trajectory gets farther from the fixed point. We spiral outward and the fixed point is unstable. On the other hand, if a is less than zero, our exponential part goes to zero and the trajectory spirals inward and the fixed point is stable. So, for example, let's consider our system. We'll sketch our null clines and locate the fixed point. We find the eigenvalues, which are minus one plus or minus four i, and so the general solution will have the form where v0 is our fixed point and c is some appropriately chosen constant vector. Since the real component goes to zero as t goes to infinity, the trajectories are going to spiral in towards the fixed point.


I suppose I might as well disclose about the zombies, is that where this is leading? I'm Jerry Bain for Educause. On June 1st, John O'Brien became president and CEO of Educause. He comes to us from the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System, where he served as a professor, an associate vice chancellor for instructional technology, a provost, a president, and senior vice chancellor for student and academic affairs, for the fifth largest U.S. system in the country. Welcome, John. Thank you. Why would a college president want to serve as a president for an association for IT professionals? My first love is technology. I mean, when I was a faculty member, what energized me was using technology to enhance my teaching. When I became an administrator, I was working as an associate vice chancellor of instructional technology. So here I have a chance to work at a bigger level to serve colleges and universities all across the country while returning to my first love. I believe that the next evolution of Educause is not going to be brought on by IT professionals talking more to each other. That the future of this next evolution for Educause is going to be IT talking to presidents, presidents talking to IT professionals, IT talking to other leaders across the campus. You've been here a hundred days. That's not a long time. What have you learned in your first hundred days? That's really not a hundred days. Yeah, it's been about a hundred days. I've learned just how complicated our community is. We've evolved over time when we gave the community poll not too long ago and started looking through the responses. Again and again, one person would say, stop doing this. This is a mistake. Please stop, exclamation point. And the next response would say, do more of that. Why don't you do more of that exclamation point? Both of the exclamation points are valid. They're both reflecting strong voices in our community. Diversity of voices. The diversity of voices and the need for Educause, if we're doing our job to serve the whole community. Yeah, we do some things that help with that exclamation point. We do other things to address that. And as a whole, we hope the balance is exactly right for serving the needs of the members. But it's more of an art than a science. So what is it that attracted you to Educause? Educause is an apologetic interest in talking about change. Change is controversial. A lot of people are worried about the changes that are coming. I think Educause understands that change is coming, is somewhat agnostic about the directions it could take, but is constantly interested in bringing together people to talk about what's happening. I think the opposite of change isn't no change. The opposite of change is surrendering the decisions to someone else and waiting to see what other people are going to do. And I think Educause is right in front of that conversation. I think there's risks with doing that. There's controversy in doing that, but it's the right thing to do. There's always concern about IT having a good relationship with the administrators and presidents of a university. How do you feel like Educause can help facilitate that relationship? Educause, before I got here, has been very interested in broadening the conversation with senior academic leaders, with other chief officers across the campus. So it's a vibrant conversation that's well underway. We try to do it through our leadership training. When we've brought folks together for BMI, for example, where I was just in July, campuses are bringing a whole team. I think that's the future is, again, where we don't just bring together IT folks to talk about IT. We bring together a team of campus leaders who can start to understand how IT is interconnected with everything, how IT relies on other leaders to be successful and other leaders better be counting on IT to help them be successful to solve the challenges of the day. When you think about the community, and you mentioned the diverse opinions that you've received, are there any questions that you have for the community? Over the complete breadth of my career at Educause, I will hopefully constantly, in different ways, be asking, how can we serve you better? Period. That's the question. If you're leading an association whose every breath is intended to serve the members that make up the community, that will always be my question. So I hear you have some unique hobbies.  Black belt in karate. Could you tell us about some of the other stuff you're interested in? Oh, well, so I taught this fantastic course with honors course with 15 students. It was called Exploring the Zombie Apocalypse. We looked at zombie films mostly from a lens of anthropology, sociology, human history. And there's a scholar who says that you can learn a lot about a culture by understanding how it scares itself. And so we looked at the films that way and saw zombies as culture critique when they're not eating grapes. That's fun. That's a lot of fun. It was mostly fun and it was a great group of students. I think we're all the best leaders we can be when we have a few other things that doesn't have to be zombies, but something else that keeps us gone.


Today, on the breakfast, Nigerian unemployment rate to increase to 40.6% due to continued inflow of job seekers into the job market would definitely have further analysis on the show. Also, on the breakfast, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, says electronic collision of election results not mandatory, citing paragraph 50 to 55 of the regulations and guidelines for the conduct of the 2023 presidential election. And don't forget, we're also looking through today's newspapers analyzing the biggest stories of the day. Good morning, and welcome to The Breakfast in Plustiv, Africa, we're reaching you live from our studios right here in Victoria Island, Lagos. I am Messia Boko. Usually our conversation starts with what Nigerians are talking about, what are the stories, what's of interest to a lot of people. Now, this is quite unfortunate, I'd like that we run the track of this particular fortunate incident that happened between the three o'clock hours of yesterday or about evening of unfortunate a reputation of what had happened, okay? And on the proof, according to the reporters, I'm sure that we can roll that particular tape if we do have it. The report is saying that this building was on the proof seven-floor building under construction collapsed in Banana Island just right here in Lagos in the evening. Now, few actually sustained injury and that's according to the report that they have been treated. The government also said that no one actually lost their life, no one's dead, but this is an unfortunate incident that happened while casting was being done. Now, if you look at that, I mean it really reminds me of 9-11, real-time capturing. You could see people up there and you could see how the building was going down. A lot of people have questioned it, but the Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development put out a statement immediately. He was at the site, however, to assess the situation and flag of investigation. The agency had activated its response plan upon arrival at the scene of the incident and discovered that that seven-story building under construction had collapsed and inspection further revealed that the building was damaged by a cement mix truck which drove into the building columns. That's the report that we're getting. Now, a headcount was also carried out by the CSO who was at the site and said that it was just an adult mill that couldn't be accounted for and he's worried about, you know, you can't tell. If you run back that particular tape, if you look at it, you see, I really don't know but it's quite scary. This is a reputation of what has happened before now. We've had a collapsed structure and it's not the first time buildings were collapsing in Lagos. Another one that happened in 2021, if I'm not mistaken, it was really, really saddening and then just when we thought that we had overcome all of this, we're not going to witness this again, then this happens yesterday. It's unfortunate. But let us cast our minds back to a lot of things. If you remember vividly, if you live in Lagos or you don't live in Lagos, then you might be interested to know that because of the high number of cases of building collapse in Lagos state, the Lagos state government had passed into law the urban and regional planning development law in 2010. That's a long time, 2010. That's the planning law. The law established three physical planning and development agencies under the ministry of physical planning and urban development. You have the Lagos State Physical Planning Permits Authority, which is settled with the responsibility of processing and issuing planning permits in the state. So you ask yourself, who issued the order? This is not possible for you to have this building erected without someone being involved. Someone approve that. Now the Lagos Building Control Agency is another one that is vested with the responsibility of monitoring and enforcing building control regulations. So it's another thing to have a law. You also have a body whose duties to ensure that regulations are respected and respected to the latter. Monitoring and enforcing building control regulation, the Lagos state renewal, urban renewal agency is also another one. The responsibility of this is that it implements the state policy on urban renewal and upgrade of slums in Lagos. So there are procedures. I mean, it is not rocket science because if you behave in a setting where you can actually predict what the outcome will be, and it's just so embarrassing and very saddening. And it's really, really scary that every other time we constantly have these occurrences and what exactly is the actions that we take? Because this building would actually, there are procedures, there are standards. There's everything. You have to go through the entire procedure. There would have been a compromise. It's not possible that, you know, this actually happened for whatever excuses that we're giving down and whatever it is that we're saying. Someone has compromised at a certain level. Not to even think about 2010. So even look at 2010 since the law was actually, I mean, there was a law in place to ensure and the creation of all of this ministry, a ministry with different bodies and agencies. Three of them. How far have we fed in Lagos state with building collapse? Do we still have, you know, these as an occurrence? Yes, of course. Like we said that time in 2021, several buildings collapsed and then we're still going to say in 2023 there will be more buildings that will collapse if we don't do the need for. Now this is entirely not on the government, but all hands must be on deck. Contractors, whatever it is, the owner of the structure, it is just something that is wrong and it's not possible. Look at that. We can't continue like this and expect a different result really. It is very embarrassing and it's saddening to say. Now, however, following that particular report, it's a good thing to say that no one has, there's no casualty in terms of, you know, someone losing their life. However, we're praying that those who have been sustained injury, you know, would actually recover quickly and there should be a proper investigation to a certain proper head count of those who are actually available. If you see that people have asked question, how did this video come real time? Was it that people had anticipated? You could see people trying to run because there's no how a building is going to try to collapse without seeing the signs. So and look at all the structures around. You ask yourself, what is wrong? What exactly is wrong with following the process if there are laws? So yes, it is a failure on government, it is a failure on people, it is failure entirely on the entire system and like I said again, if we don't do the need for, if we don't do the right thing, we will continue to witness buildings collapsing, not just in Lagos, but in the entire country. So yes, this is a wake up call. Hope we can get it right and just reduce all of this incidents. It's totally unfair. Now, the next conversation is also not very exciting because just yesterday we talked about police brutality. I think that has also dominated the conversation for the past weeks and it feels like it's sometimes not going to leave our space recently. This, the fact that the police officer was seen assaulting young people, youth over money in Delta State. So this report, according to the report and investigation that we had, a bright seeking police officer who was film assaulting, he was, I mean the video, if we have that particular track, we can actually run it, where he threatened to kill the young men over 100 in Delta State.    This is actually an amateur video. You can see what's going on right there. And I'm almost, you know, tearing at this point in time. And this happened in Delta State, the state capital. But just quickly look at that, I'm not sure we have the audio for that. You could see, you could see this. It brings a lot of tears, you know, to my eyes. But I'll try not to let it drop this morning. Okay. So that's exactly the kind of climate that we're leaving. That's the kind of society that we're leaving. Those who are being paid with taxpayers' money are treating, you know, Nigerians as animals and treating them like they don't even matter in the course of just charging your duty. I'm sure that we can do, you know, better as a people. This is really, really heartbreaking. And honestly, I really don't understand where we're headed as a people. You might also be interested to know that recently, just recently, we talked about the killing that happened of a middle-aged businessman by police officers after the disease, reportedly refused to offer him 100 naira as bribe at the checkpoints. The debt of this young man led to a serious protest in the capital.  And then again, we're talking about this. We're exactly aware of this. Where is the IGP in all of this? What is the president saying? What are the people saying? What are these governors who actually also resisted the policy of the naira redesign? What exactly are we saying with all of this inhumanity that's going on? All those sort of crude behavior that we have in the police system? I mean, just really look at that. It is so shameful. But that's what happens when you have laws and they lack of implementing. People are not paying for the crime. People, you know, because there's a lot of impunity when people are not punished for what they have done, then it continues to enthrone such behavior. And those police officers think that they can act this way and get away with it. But again, there's no how we're going to say we have laws. Because we do have laws. The problem is not that we don't have laws. We have laws that cater to all of these issues. But exactly who you asked the question, what exactly is the problem? The problem is in the fact that we do not implement the laws. And this is fanning the wings of this man.  But are you really the friend of the people? It's a question you need to ask yourself. In the course of discharging your duty, is it anywhere that is written in, you know, your mode of a parandhi, the guidelines, the letter of offer, whatever it is, the entire training that you have, that you have to carry out your duty in this manner. This is totally, you know, not acceptable. And I'm hoping that the relevant quarters would rise up. And these men involved in this sort of behavior, barbaric behavior, will be apprehended and made to face the law. Now, don't forget that for whatever it is, whether it's a criminal, everyone is innocent until they've been proven guilty. So exactly what exactly could be responsible for this behavior? Let's move away from it, but I will be surprised that, you know, we'll probably come back tomorrow and we're talking about another sort of inhuman treatment by police officers, those who should be maintaining the law and all the, those who should be friends of the people, but in turn have made themselves enemy of the people. Now, and also another one, which is also not interesting.  It's the fact that the Labor Party presidential candidate Peter Abbe has been said to do a report saying that he was held at the Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom after being approached by immigration officials. So this is actually not something that happened like, okay, happened yesterday and then the reporting. Now, according to a statement that was released by the Obie Darty media office that was yesterday, Obie was purportedly taken aside for copying crime like an imposter, impersonation. Now, according to the Labor Party media office, they suggested that he had an imposter in the nation. So someone apparently is impost, I mean, is impersonating Peter Abbe. Obie Darty media office confirmed that the Labor Party presidential candidate who had arrived the airport in London from Nigeria joined the queue for just necessary airport protocols when he was accosted by immigration official who handed him a detention note and told him to step aside. So this was actually reported on Wednesday, but doesn't mean that it happened on Wednesday by a Professor Ching Chinyer who's also a known mass communication expert and deputy vice chancellor of a popular university, Paul University in Oka. Now, reports say that Peter Abbe had lived in the UK and he described it, I mean, it was said that he described this professor, his ordeal, who had served alongside him as commissioner for information, for economic planning and coordinating commissioner or commission for the development partners in the private sector at the time where he was also governor. He said that Peter Abbe expressed his pain over the ordeal and incident that were intended to, you know, just, I think it's quite embarrassing if you say, but there are too many questions that are seeking for a lot of answers, begging for answers. Now, according to Professor Ching Chinyer, he was in the face of some sort of protest by Nigerians where the immigration officer revealed that someone was impersonating him because apparently if he showed up, people would have seen him. And when they couldn't, they noticed that, you know, the questioning was taking a long time. People became very concerned. It was strange for the fact that he didn't come out immediately. And I think that, you know, arose the interest of a lot of Nigerians that were there at the time. And of course that led to them saying what happened. It was just for the quick intervention of Nigerians who were available. We don't probably know what would have been the issue. But like I said, there are too many things that you want to begin to question and probe. So if you say someone is impersonating, how is that possible? Because it's not possible for you to impersonate me without my biometrics. And I mean, there's a lot of things. It's a person impersonating the name. It's a person using the picture as well. Because if you go, someone has to look at your passport and look at the face. It's the same person are using the name How can that happen without a collaborative effort? What exactly is going on? At what point was this bridge? Too many questions between the Nigerian society and including the United Kingdom. There's several questions that are begging for answers. But fingers across, we see how all of that pans out. It can't be unfortunate. You can only imagine what would happen in other parts of crime. Because if someone impersonates you, it's easy for them. The someone that has impersonated you and the problem might just be in that country committing crime in your name and with your face. So we can't for sure say if this person is like, this person cloned the passport with his face, with all of his details. That's a lot to grapple. That's a lot to wrap our heads around. But we would definitely seek answers to all of this and follow and bring you more updates and development as to this particular story. That's the size of it. We'll just take a quick break. When we return, we'll just like to run through the front pages of our national dailies. We'll call it After Press. Please stick with us.