Thank you so much for the introduction, and I'm very excited to be here back at ProductCon. Today, I'm going to talk a little bit more about empowering product management and advice to my younger self as a women leader. A little bit about who I am and my journey and what brings me to this topic today. I did my undergrad in computer science. I did my master's in Carnegie Mellon University, and I have been in the retail industry in product management for a decade now, working at Sears, Walmart, and currently at Sephora. Both my parents are writers. I love writing, and I channel on with my frustration and all my negative energy towards writing.  His name is Leo, who's my constant source of inspiration and also kind of my therapist slash stress reliever. I love gardening, have a lot of plans, as well as organizing myself. I'm an introvert at heart. I recently even wrote a book called Not the Loudest Person in the Room, which talks about all my thoughts of how I got here and what has helped me learn throughout my journey. As I was thinking about what I should talk about in this topic, I was thinking, if I'm a product manager at heart, how can I look at my career through the lens of product management? And if I have to define or grow this product, which is my career, how would I do it? My growth, which is currently the product that I'm talking about, is a combination of passion, strategy, and continuous innovation. This, of course, did not happen overnight. This has been a journey that I have learned through various touch points in my life from various people, and I continuously try to evolve as I learn more. The first thing about product management, if you know, is figuring out who your customer is. And in this sense, the customer is yourself, which means how do you figure out who you are, what works for you, what does not work for you, and what environment is more conducive for your productivity and what isn't? This is something that I realized much later in my journey, but if only somebody had taught me initially that understanding myself before I tried to understand everybody else was important, would have helped me a lot. So what makes me me? This is a question that if I had asked a couple of years ago, I would have probably not have all the answers and I still don't. And I know this is gonna continuously evolve over the next couple of years. What is my emotional portion when did I figure out I was an introvert? How do I use writing as my channel for all my energy? What I have a to-do list that always keeps growing, but to-do list keeps me sane. So all of these little things about what helps me be sane and more productive is very important for me. Self-awareness and understanding who you are is not just important for yourself, but it's also the foundation for a strong team and boundless potential. Because I know my style, what works for me, I'm able to build a team that complements my style of working as well as complement the strengths that I don't have that other people have that I can learn from. I think in that way, when you're looking at building a team, you're not just looking at the strengths and weaknesses of you, but the people that you bring in so that overall as an org, you're pretty strong. Apart from that, I think just understanding and communicating how you work helps in building a thriving and work environment because I wish everybody could read people's minds, but unfortunately they can't. One thing that I have come to realize in the last couple of years is just communicating what works for you and what doesn't. For example, I constantly tell the people that I work with that I need time to process things. On the spot questions, on the spot answers is not something that I'm comfortable with. It's not that I cannot do it, but the best version of myself comes through when I have time to think and process. So this is something that my peers as well as my leadership team knows, which I think has helped them give me an opportunity to be the best version of myself. As well as embracing your unique perspective, for the longest time in my career, I was always trying to look at what do others feel is the best version of myself that I need to be. Only in the last couple of years have I realized that embracing my unique perspective and understanding that the diverse thoughts that people put together and come together is what builds a very unique product. So if you're looking at building a diverse team, it's not just checking the box in terms of diversity, but also embracing your own unique perspective so that you can be confident about the thoughts that you're sharing. So as I started thinking through this, I have this me framework that I kind of use, which looks at who you're targeting, which is right now me, what is my style of working? What is my emotional quotient? And how do I communicate who I am and how I work so that I can be productive? The next part of the product lifecycle, if you're looking at, now you understood the customer, the next is what does success mean? You constantly look at products and evaluate what are the key metrics you have to target, what is the goal? Is it conversion? Is it revenue? So if you take a step back and look at what does success mean to you, how does your career look successful over the next couple of years? I think that just unlocks a lot of, sparks a lot of thought that you can actually work on. For me, the biggest confusion I had earlier in my career is what motivates me. You know, sometimes people always think that motivation is promotion going to the next level, but there's so many different levels of motivation that people have. For me personally, it was a bigger responsibility, a larger role, as well as meaningful conversations with smart people, also focusing on growth in terms of not just career growth, but overall personality, and what else should I be working on that makes me grow as a person and not just as a product manager? If you put this lens, not just for yourself, but your team as well, I have seen a lot of opportunities where I can learn from my team on what truly motivates them. And sometimes it could be just dollars, but you really need to understand what is the true motivation for people? And what does growth mean to me as well? Because growth during different career points in my time meant different things. During certain times it meant going to the next level, but at this point of my time, I do know where I see myself in the next five years. It's funny when, you know, in interview questions, they always ask you, they always ask you like, where do you see yourself in the next five years? And I'm like, I don't even know where I see myself in the next month or so. How would I possibly be able to answer this question? But looking back now, I think it's very important to have that longer term goal in mind so that you can plan your next steps of how do you get there? Because you're not just looking at the immediate next step, but you're looking at your larger goal of where you want to be. For example, I need to be a chief product officer in the next couple of years. If that is the goal, then are the steps that I'm taking right now actually helping me achieve that? In the short term, you may think that, you know, you're taking a hit either on your salary or your designation or the company that you're working for. But in the long run, if it aligns with the goal that you actually have, it's still open. One of my mentors actually taught me this, which is looking at what are the pillars of my life? I was a workaholic a couple of years ago, and I was extremely proud of being an workaholic before I knew the nuances of being a workaholic. I think what my mentor taught me was looking at what are the different pillars of my life, which includes my family, my health, my work, and my personal goal. So if these are the four pillars of my life, how can I accelerate each one of them and not just focus on one because that's what makes you whole? So today I have a particular goal for each of these pillars and I'm able to allocate and manage my time so that I can actually focus on all of these pillars and not just the work. So continuing the me framework that we were working on, you know who you are, you know who the audience is, you know what success means, what is your motivation, what are the pillars and purpose of your life? So now we're gonna move on to the next segment. So how do I make it happen? So going back to the product lifecycle, you know who you're targeting, you know what success means, how do you actually make it happen? I wish there was a formula that I could share that here are the five steps that you know how do you make it happen, but a few things I have learned along the way is identifying what is the path to get there and not everybody's path is the same and even my path so far of being a senior product manager to like a VP of product and UX has gone through so many ups and downs. If I have to go back in time and revisit that path, I would have probably made a few different choices in the type of initiatives that I worked on in the choices that I made of which team I wanna be a part of, which company that I wanna be a part of, how long should I stay with the company? Is this, am I still continuing to learn in the place that I have all of these questions constantly having a retrospective of where you are in your current path, make sure that you have a path forward understanding where you have come so far. Knowing all the things that you know at every point, one thing that I have constantly learned is what should I learn and unlearn? What I mean by this is at every stage in your growth, whether it's moving to the next level, moving, changing jobs, going, switching roles, what are the things, how do you build your skill set that is required for you to be successful at that job and not just at that level, but operating at the next level? One thing that I constantly look at is irrespective of if there is an opportunity or if there is a need, if I have to step into my boss's role tomorrow, am I ready for it? And if not, what are the things I should accompany or what should I be successful at that I can take over the job tomorrow? I think this constantly keeps me grounded on what I am good at and what I constantly need to evolve, which gives me perspective on what should I work on next? Who I can learn from? I think this has been such meaningful and important aspect of my journey so far, because there have been so many inspirational mentors and peers and friends that I have worked with where I constantly take nuggets of things that I learn from them. And it's very important to make sure that you have a circle of people that you can consistently learn from, be it in your current job or your network or anywhere else, but having a mentor or multiple mentors or having people that you can look up to and learn from, irrespective of their level, doesn't mean they have to be the C level or the VPs. I learned so many things from my team as well, is also an important thing. And then finally harnessing the power of strong relationships because relationships is what you take away at the end of the day. As I said before, I've been in product management and in the retail space for over a decade, but what has kept me running so far is the relationships that I have built across the years that I have worked with, which I continue to be grateful for and learn about. So building on the framework, you now know how with the skills you need to learn and unlearn, forging your path for success, building mentors and allies who can advocate for you and who are able to provide guidance and the right opportunity for you to succeed. When do I start? I don't think there's ever a right time that says, now's the time to look at building this main framework, but one thing I can say is it's never too late and it's never too early as well, right? So at any moment I get where I wanna take a break and just evaluate my journey so far, I really look at the parts that I have put forward and evaluate if this makes sense or not. How do I make progress? Because when I look at the success metrics of my journey, it does not mean that hitting a goal of like, hey, I need to be a CPO by X years is success. I think what I see as success is if I'm making progress towards my goals, towards the pillars of my life. And if I have a plan forward of if I'm stuck in a certain place, how can I actually break that funk that I'm in and I actually look at how do I make progress? And how do I evolve as I grow? When people ask me what my leadership style is, my answer always is that it's not set in stone and I learn as I grow and I evolve and unlearn so many things as I am more self-aware of who I am and what my environment is. So it's important for us to look at not just getting hung up with the current environment that you're in, but you're looking at how are you continuously evolving as you grow? So finally we have the last part of the main framework which is when, right? Like when do you start to implement this framework? How do you make progress and how do you constantly evolve? So this completes like what I look at the product lifecycle of my journey and my career and how do I constantly evolve and look at this different pieces of the puzzle and try to bring it together? A few things that I wish somebody had told me earlier was also personalizing my journey. Personalization is such a buzzword these days you're looking at personalizing your customer experience, your site, your apps, but what about personalizing your own journey? What have you looked at? Like, you know the concepts of what personalization means from a customer perspective. If you could apply the same concepts of that to your particular career or your lifestyle, there's so much more you can learn about yourself and so much more meaningful progress that you can make in what triggers you, what is your trigger to move to the next best intent, your next best action? And it's kind of fun for me personally being a product manager to look at personalizing my own journey and have a retrospective at different times. One thing that I have struggled with a lot which I continue to do so is imposter syndrome of asking myself, am I good enough? And this by no means, am I saying is my fault or the female executive fault saying that they have, it's something that we need to fix. But it's just the matter of fact that recently there was a study where 75% of female executive cross industries experienced imposter syndrome. Two ways to look at it is one for myself but also the environment that I am building as a leader to make sure that the team that I'm working with do not experience the same thing. I have personally experienced it myself during various points in my career which how to get out of it has always been a strong ally or a strong mentor who's able to be very objective about the things that you are good at and what you're not and not get into this vicious cycle of questioning yourself at every time of are you good enough? And this definitely adds more pressure to myself which is not needed, a lot of stress which can reflect in your health issues as well. But something that I know I'm cognizant of that this is something that I need to work on and build an environment where my team doesn't feel the same. And finally advocating myself going back to the product management principles, you know how when you build a product you're looking at marketing the product and communicating how good the product is but are you doing the same for yourself? This was again something that my mentor taught me of when are you actually going to speak out for yourself? I was always that person in the room, in the corner, being a fly on the wall, I don't speak up in meetings but I do know how to advocate for myself which does not put me, make me too uncomfortable but just the right amount of uncomfortableness that I can push myself but make sure that it's not stressing me out or causing me a new concern. So this is something I would definitely, I wish I had known a couple of years ago. If you had not listened to any of the things that I had spoken so far, I think a few key takeaways that I would like to highlight is build your own me framework. You don't have to be a product manager to do this, it's just a framework for you to evaluate yourself, what your goals are, what makes you comfortable, productive, how are you your true authentic self to bring in the values that you have as well as how are you building an environment that everybody can try? Embracing your unique perspective as your authentic self and leveraging it to contribute valuable insights, building strong relationships with not just your current team members, stakeholders, your network that you have, the people that you work with, cultivating leadership skills, advocating for yourself, seeking mentorship and sponsorship to empower your career because it takes so much for us to actually think about to make sure that we are successful. I hope this was helpful. If you have more questions, you can follow me on LinkedIn. You can find me at Sneha Narahali. I'm very active on LinkedIn, but thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to share my thoughts and I'm looking forward to any questions.


This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Welcome to Global Connections on Think Tech. I'm your host today, Carol Mon Lee. Our show is called ISAS Conference and Dr. Kathleen Davis, and we're going to talk about the global perspectives on Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Saxonisms from halfway around the world. The International Society of Anglo-Saxons' 18th Biennial Meeting brings important scholars to Hawaii and what the Pacific Biennial gives a different perspective on Anglo-Saxon studies. If you want to ask a question or participate in a today's discussion, you can tweet us at thinktechhi or call us at<PHONE_NUMBER>. Our guest for today is Dr. Kathleen Davis of the University of Rhode Island. Dr. Davis is in Hawaii to attend the conference, the International Society of Anglo-Saxonism, taking place here at the University of Hawaii. She's invited as the Jerry H. Mantley Memorial keynote speaker and will speak on archipelagos of historiography. Professor Davis is a skilled scholar of Anglo-Saxon and medieval English literature and has been described as a courageously committed diologist of medieval and post-colonial studies at the Moscow. Welcome to the show, Dr. Davis. Thank you. It's so nice to have you. Thank you for having me. This is a really important conference for the state of Hawaii and I know that it's been in preparation for many months and years. So why don't you tell us a little bit about ISAS and what that stands for? ISAS is the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists, so-called because it is for Anglo-Saxonists who are from all over the world. We have people from Japan, from all over Europe, of course, mainly, however, England and the United States. Anglo-Saxonists, the study of Anglo-Saxon studies, it focuses on anything to do with what's called the Anglo-Saxon period, something we would problematize, which would be from about 500 to about 1100 in England. Only England? Well, yes, mainly England. There are connections to Germany and to lots of other areas because the people who moved into Britain, say, in the fifth and sixth centuries, were from the mainland and many Germanic areas. So the North Sea is another way of imagining how to study this area and this time. But there's a very interesting connection made here in Hawaii and what Dr. Karen Jolly, who teaches here at the University of Hawaii, who is hosting and University of Hawaii is hosting very nicely, the conference, what Dr. Jolly wanted to do was open out Anglo-Saxon studies to a very different perspective, make international means something different altogether. So the International Society meets, what, twice every other year? And typically the meetings have been in Europe? Typically Europe, yes, moving around Europe and the United States. So this is the first time it's ever been in Hawaii or in the Pacific? I believe it is. I have to check my history, but I know it's not been in Hawaii before and I don't think it's been in the Pacific at all. Okay, and so again let's talk again about why that is so important this time to have the conference here in Hawaii. What that means to the study and how the influences from the Pacific may affect the ongoing interest of the many scholars who are here for this program. So the background is that Anglo-Saxon studies has first of all tended to be a very conservative field in the past, although that is changing. And also in the sense of being very Eurocentric. Eurocentric. Yes, very Eurocentric. And focused on issues that don't tend to open out on current dialogues today, whether that be, you know, this isn't the past, not now. Things have changed drastically, but in the past very focused on, well, very white, very male, very nationalist history, all right. So that's why Karen wanted to bring it here, because for a long time, again, I want to emphasize because I don't want my colleagues to get angry with me in the past. This is where it's coming from and great strides have been made, but not enough to fully open out onto the kind of global perspective, which I'll talk about in a minute, that is happening faster and faster today. So the one thing is that it's been tied to nationalism. So Anglo-Saxon studies has been tied to nationalism, and unfortunately today even things like white supremacy. No kidding. Yes, because white Anglo-Saxon is the way people who consider themselves wasps, yes. Very white power would like to think of themselves quite often, that is, the characterization. So of course that is not ever what the field was about, but it's more important than ever for this reason to educate people about, but also ourselves, about the history of the field and what our own responsibilities to a field like this are. So because it has been, going back into the 18th and 19th centuries, a field that has been very much tied to nationalism, it is also very much tied to colonialism, because disciplines that took shape, history, religious studies, anthropology, literary studies, they all took their form in the 18th and 19th centuries, different ones at different, you know, paces and during that time. They tended to be very tied to nationalist studies, not only in England, but in other European countries. And nationalist studies were also the kin of imperial studies and colonialism. So as, for example, and we had a very, another keynote that talked a little bit about yesterday the other day, as missionaries for example would go in the 19th century to proselytize people in Hawaii, they compared Hawaiians to the savage people that needed to be Christianized in the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th centuries that had been Christianized from other places. And then, so their missionaries became like the missionaries who had converted the people in England. It wasn't called England. Many centuries ago. Yes, many centuries ago. So the past, the people of Anglo-Saxon England were considered kind of savage in a way that a 19th century person could say, that is our childish past. We, it is our identity. We identify with that as our past and so we keep it. But we know that we have matured. Now we are the grown-ups and the people whom we are blessing with colonization are the ones who are going to be made to grow up. Yes, I mean that is the history, unfortunately. Well, but now, fields, you know, all disciplines are working very hard, different disciplines at different paces and of course every discipline is, there is a very specific history as to how this played out. The identifications that were made, the very specific ways that these were attached to policies and the way that it fed back because the experiences that people would have, say here in Hawaii, we just heard that an islander who had, and I don't remember his name, unfortunately that our first speaker spoke about, who had become himself a bishop, became a model for how people who were studying the Anglo-Saxon bishops talked about what that Anglo-Saxon bishop was like. So there is an interesting kind of circular narrative that develops. So the people we study that we call the people from Anglo-Saxon England, the name itself is problematic. I see. So what would be a more accurate name? Well, that's always the million-dollar question. And how does the conference advance any of the issues or the scholarship in the field? I know it just started. We're only in the second day of the five-day conference with how many people from around the world? About 200, I believe. About 200. Right. So do you have a tension? It has been fabulous. So first of all, the call for papers emphasized the place that this is being held in this place. The middle of the Pacific? Right.  And so that's the kind of papers that we're looking for for this conference. It wasn't the sort of thing where it was prescriptive, right? But this is the theme of the conference. And many people, there have been some wonderful papers, have worked hard to think about what I just explained to you, that here we are with a discipline that has this history to ask ourselves what is our responsibility and what can be done with the material that we have to study that opens it up. But more importantly, how can we look at our materials differently? So instead of looking at it from a nationalistic perspective, there have been papers, for example, on England and Wales. Because Wales was also colonized, right? It was also on the fringe from way back, even many centuries before. So had it been ignored more than that to now? Well, there are aficionados and there are small pockets, but it doesn't have anything like the resources or the attention, of course, under colonialism. I don't want to say under colonialism because that's kind of a broad brush, but under the duress of a dominating power, the language was suppressed, similar histories, as with Hawaii and the culture and the language all, everything, everything. So the question is going back, how do we rethink England and Wales and just think of them as separate entirely, right? So there have been papers opening out the history that was really a regional history that wasn't so separate. We call it now England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, you know? So thinking about regional histories just cracking through all the boundaries, thinking about the text that we have that actually are looking out across the world are not necessarily kind of monocentric. So it's, I can't characterize all of the papers, but there have been brilliant, brilliant papers. Yeah, I know. It's very impressive. I understand there are about 70 different papers that are going to be given, but I know you're speaking on Thursday, and we mentioned it's the Jerry H. Bentley Memorial keynote speaker and of course it's very special to me since it was my late husband.  Archipelagos of historiography. And how does this fit into this overall theme of the globalization of the Anglo-Saxon studies? So going with the idea of the connectedness of an archipelago as opposed to the remoteness of an island, you know, that rather than thinking of islands as isolated, that thinking of archipelagos and connectedness, I'm putting historiography with the archipelago because I want to emphasize the connectedness of histories across the globe. In several ways, one, less fortunate, and that is that the historiography, the writing of history and the study of writings of history have, from Eurocentric perspectives, often and we're done through imperial lives. I see. Right? So, but the sun never sets on the British Empire, right? So in a sense that it's today unfortunate that we have those archipelagos of historiography. And then we could push against that the other way and imagine these connected histories by starting to do different kinds of historical work. Okay. Well, I'm going to ask you to break for a second and we'll get back to that right after the break. We'll be right back with our show on the ISAS conference here in Hawaii with my guest, Dr. Kathleen Davis from the University of Rhode Island. We'll be right back. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. The grandmother, what big eyes you have. She said, what are you doing? Research says reading from birth accelerates our baby's brain development. Push! Read aloud 15 minutes. Every child. Every parent. Every day. I'm Helen Dora Hayden, the host of Voice of the Veteran, seen here live every Thursday afternoon at 1 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii. As a fellow veteran and veterans advocate with over 23 years experience serving veterans, active duty and family members, I hope to educate everyone on benefits and accessibility services by inviting professionals in the field to appear on the show. In addition, I hope to plan on inviting guest veterans to talk about their concerns and possibly offer solutions. As we navigate and work together through issues, we can all benefit. Please join me every Thursday at 1 p.m. for the Voice of the Veteran. Aloha! Welcome back. This is Carol Mon Lee on Global Connections with my guest, Dr. Kathleen Davis from the University of Rhode Island, who is here for a very important conference called the International Society of Anglo-Saxonist by annual 2017 meeting in Honolulu. And Dr. Davis is one of the keynote speakers on Thursday. But let's talk a little bit about your own particular work in Rhode Island and other places that you've been. I know you were at Princeton for a while. So my teaching? Yes. Yes. You're teaching, you're writing, you're research. Okay. So I'm generally a medievalist, so my teaching can be anything. I'm in the English department, so I teach literature. So what are your classes, for instance, during the semester? I teach sometimes Chaucer, sometimes an overview of medieval literature, which can include and go from, say, works from about 800 to about 1500, all different kinds. I generally teach topics courses, so I get to pick, which is very nice. More pertinent to what we're doing now are two classes. One is history of the English language, which can be taught in such a way, and this is what I do with it, to impress the students who are mainly going to be secondary education English teachers. So it matters. They're going out and in Providence, where I am up in Rhode Island, they're going to be going into some minority neighborhoods, because it's a city. So I want to emphasize the global history of English, that it is a language that has dominated and its domination has a history that they need to be aware of. I also really, really emphasize that there is no standard English in a way that means this is the correct English, but rather that a standard English is actually a language of privilege that comes with university education, usually, or socioeconomic privilege. So they're the sorts of things I try to do. But of course they learn the history in various other ways, going back into the past, regional dialects, as well as going through the centuries and seeing actually how it's changed. And of course now, do you also cover how the changes in, whether it's the internet technology, slang, has all evolved in emojis? Yes, I started the last year when I started teaching the very first day, we talked about emojis, which was a very, I've discovered a good way to start off that class and get some going. Well, let's talk about some of your publications. I know we have a, let's pick Ray, let's have a cover of one of Professor Davis' books. And this is called Medievalism in the Post-Colonial World, and what is the subject? The idea of the Middle Ages outside Europe. So it's Medievalism's plural in the post-colonial world. So I edited this with Nadia Alcho, a friend of mine, and she is from South America. She does Medieval Spain. She works with Medieval Spain, but more now on South American editing and reception of the idea of the Middle Ages. But the idea of the Middle Ages, how it performed in the, for example, the writing of South American history, there are many, many examples. That's one example of Medievalism in a post-colonial world, the world that was colonized. So all of the countries treated in the book were places that had been colonized by Europe. And what the idea of the Middle Ages did in the history of those people. I'm not sure if that's entirely making sense. Just as I said earlier, that people in Hawaii, for example, would be considered the savages who need to be converted, et cetera. But they would be labeled backward or medieval in many parts of the world. So for example, in the South American countries, the idea that the people were backward and living in the Middle Ages and had to get out of the Middle Ages was very powerful. I'm speaking of it in extremely general terms. There are specifics of how that operated. So for example, the idea that Argentina was a feudal country and it needed to get over that feudal organization. Modernized. Modernized. Now, that may sound like, OK, well, it's just language that's being used. But no. It has to do with the organization and the ownership of land. It has to do with power structures. It has to do with rationalizing why one person should be able to be dominant rather than a group of people spreading the power out, which would be labeled at sometimes feudal, because it's like feudal lords, each having their own little feats. So the idea of things like the feudal or like the medieval were powerful rationales for manipulating power. And that can be traced in so many countries all around the world. So is this an ongoing area of study for you, focusing on South America? Nadia focuses on South America. I mentioned that as an example. My interest, which is more of the other book, Periodization. Let's show the cover of the next book. And both of these were written in 2008, 2009. This was published in 2008. I think it wasn't medievalism. I think the other book was published in 2010. Yeah. And this track, After a while. Right. It's called The Periodization and Sovereignty. Periodization and Sovereignty. How ideas of feudalism, where you can see my interest there, and secularization govern the politics of time. And this book was met with great critical acclaim. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. I was very impressed. Yes. So please tell us a little bit about this. Okay. As I started to realize the deep intertwining of medieval studies and colonialism and the work that the Middle Ages as a category was doing. Because first of all, this is hard to explain to people, but the Middle Ages, where you have to kind of unthink that, right? That's just the category. It's a label that was put on a group of centuries across Europe. And it seems very innocent. But you really have to remember that it is a category that was produced over a certain amount of time. It didn't just pop up all of a sudden. But in a shorter period of time than one would think. And it did a lot of work. Just as I was saying, the idea of the feudal does work in, say, for example, South America. I wanted to get at, where did this come from? How is this so powerful? Let me try to figure out where it came from. And as I searched, I was searching the term, the Middle Ages. And other people had before me, there were various articles that tried, just talked about where this comes from. It was all very shallow, none of it was satisfactory. And I thought, you know what? What holds it together? What really holds this idea of the Middle Ages together? I thought, what are the real big categories? And I thought, well, feudalism, Middle Ages and feudalism, they're just almost made to be identical. And very different secularization in the sense that if you, coming from something that Jerry, when he called moderno-centrism, people, critics for many decades, all through the 20th century, so focused on, what's the modern? And what do you have to be to be modern? What do you have to be to be modern means not being what came before the modern, which would be the medieval, which would be the example of what not to be. And that's another thing about colonialism is people who were colonizing, you have to be modern, you have to catch up. You're in the Middle Ages, catch up, catch up, get out. What do you have to be? Well, you have to not be religious, stuck in religious, under theological oppression. You have to be secular. Now, of course, that meant a very specific thing and it was always defined in such a way that no one outside Europe ever could really satisfy the requirements, but the secular is something, as you can see today, is driving a lot of very violent politics. Right. Well, you get a chance to talk about your books at the conference? I don't know that I will. I wanted to focus on some particular things in the talk that pays more attention to the relationship between an Anglo-Saxon past as it has been used and thinking about colonial histories. Okay. So it's implicit. Right. The work of the book is implicit in what I will be talking about. Great. Well, this has been so interesting. Well, thank you. And there's so much to cover. I urge our audience to learn more about ISIS, ISAS, International Society of Anglo-Saxons and how it's so important for us as a global society to understand all parts of history in the world and by bringing you coming to Hawaii, it really has given us the opportunity to interact more and understand better. So let's show one last slide, which is the Conference International Society of Anglo-Saxons 18th Biennial Meeting this week at UH Manoa. And on that note, I'm going to thank you so much for coming today, Dr. Davis. Well, thank you for having me. It's been a treat. Yeah. Well, this brings us to the end of our show. We've enjoyed bringing it to you and I'm your host, Carol Monly, with our guest Dr. Davis from the University of Rhode Island. And we've been talking about the conference and look forward to having more scholars come to Hawaii and share with us their different areas of interest. So thank you again. And on behalf of our staff, Bray Sangalong, our production engineer, and Rob McClain, our floor manager, and all the others who contribute to our ThinkTech Productions mahalo.


Hello people, I'm Ginny Metherill and I'm a fourth generation witch. We're going to look at some crystals today and I want to do my personal top three and how I use them because I think it's actually a really important part of witchcraft to indulge yourself in crystals and I let's face it indulge myself quite a lot with crystals but I wanted to tell you how and why and where I might use these three crystals which I consider to be an absolutely integral part of my path. So this is the crystals I use for spellcraft and magic. Before we get started I just need to tell you about today's sponsor resincrete. Today's sponsor is resincrete, an eco-friendly crafting solution. So what it is it's basically a mould it's a plaster of paris type mould but this is made from pure minerals so it doesn't have any of the toxic noxious fumes that you get with actual resin and is therefore safe to do with your children. It makes a wonderfully smooth finish so you can easily paint on it. So let me show you what's inside the package and how you do it. The package comes with literally everything that you need.  You start by measuring your water and it's 30 grams of water per 100 grams of resincrete. Although I mixed it up wrong first of all so do read the instructions on the back. You do it by weight and simply one scoop of resincrete is about 30 grams or there about so I'm going to add three scoops and a little bit more just to bring it up to 100 grams. I added some pigment, a couple of squirts, in fact it came to two grams into the water and then I simply put it all together and mixed. When it was smoothly mixed I poured it into these two moulds and 100 grams filled these two but to be honest you get plenty of resin mix in a pack and you can make lots and lots of these so it's very good value and then you simply wait. It really was as easy as that and to unmould it you just take it out it's I couldn't it couldn't have been simpler. I was so impressed with the result and I didn't even need to sand off the edges. I got my incredibly talented daughter to decorate them for me and I think she's done a fabulous job with this beautiful silver pen and I will be using these on my altar. They're gorgeous thank you my love. If you would like to try resin crete and I really recommend this one it was such fun to do really simple it's eco-friendly and perfect for all sorts of crafts then the link is in my description box below and as a special Ginny treat there's a five percent off voucher there too. Have a look. Resin crete by J-Diction it is recommended. So what are my top crystals that I use? Well of course we all use different crystals and we're all drawn to different crystals but the one that I'm drawn to possibly the most and the one that I'm going to talk about the first is the humble yet beautiful Carnelian.  The Egyptians believe that the Carnelians would absorb the sun's magical energy and then impart that to the wearer. In fact ancient warriors would wear Carnelians around their necks in order to absorb bravery strength and courage as well as protection from them. I love Carnelians I find their particular energy very vibing with mine so it's quite vibrant it's quite strong it's quite dominant. Other cultures thought they were excellent healing stones now I'm no healer let's just get that out there I have plenty of people I know who are healers I'm not one of them it's because I'm too lay so fair I think you have to be very concise and dedicated and careful as a healer and that is not me I can help generally not particularly but if I needed healing I would use a Carnelian stone they're particularly associated with blood and we did mention they're called the blood stone that's because they're beautiful red colour. The way it works with Carnelians is that they impart energy into the blood flow so they increase your blood flow through their energy and this will give you magical healing throughout all parts of your bodies so they're sort of a master healer if you like. Many many years ago I got my very first Carnelian as a thank you present and it was after I unwound some fairly intense dark magic that had been made several centuries ago and was having an ongoing impact into the area that this magic had been cast and at the end of it I was given a particular present which is this Carnelian here and the guardians of the place that we did this curse breaking essentially gave me this Carnelian it is an absolutely beautiful one and it is in fact the cornerstone of my Carnelians now now you all may know that one of my main jobs as a witch is to deal with demonic entities and these Carnelians are what protect me against them so I would place them in a pentacle format I stand in the middle of the pentacle and when I'm dealing with demonic entities they are protecting me from the psychic attack that I'm likely to suffer whilst doing this work they are a strong protective crystal and then when I was doing my warding for this house I think I've got them dotted around the wards as far as I remember it's very difficult to remember I'm you know I'm old and I can't remember what I use but I'm pretty sure that Carnelians were involved so for me the Carnelian is one of my most prized stones but should you ever be dealing with darker forces please consider using Carnelians to protect you against them they have one last point which they're well known for the noble art of Feng Shui will use Carnelians in the south eastern corner of your home in order to attract positive energy my second stone is the clear quartz clear quartz is possibly the communist gemstone in this world I think you can walk outside the door and find a quartz lying around which will have clear quartz in it however clear quartz is known as a master stone so what this essentially means if you are doing some spellcraft that calls for say tourmaline or hematite or adventurine or something along those lines and you don't have it you can always substitute clear quartz it is a master stone as well because it amplifies everything that you do now those of you that know me well will know that I have this beautiful pendulum which is a clear quartz pendulum which I received many years ago I use it almost hourly throughout the day it's one of the first things I reach for in the morning one of the last things I put down at night I find it as an amplification of everything that I need it to be now let's say for example that I wish to talk with a spirit this clear quartz pendulum will amplify their voice so I can hear them better will amplify that intuitive feeling that I'm trying to you know tap into and so I can understand it it is why they are used as crystal balls and have actually been since history time immemorial there are some so famous crystal balls out the empress daughter shishi I think she's pronounced she's got this beautiful crystal ball held in the pen museum there is john d's crystal ball who was the magician associated with Elizabeth the first court he was obviously a christian witch or a protestant witch at least he had various show stones our ancestral Celts would use a crystal quartz sphere as a healing stone because how it works is the crystal sphere amplifies positive healing energy through whoever the healer is so for example I have said already that I'm a terrible healer but if I use a quartz ball I can direct my energy through the quartz crystal ball which will amplify it and really make that healing successful they were sometimes known as knowledge keepers and you can see this in the crystal ball the druids crystal ball which is in the Scottish septer which is part of the Scottish crown jewels now this beautiful druid crystal ball was said to hold the knowledge of the druids they are used throughout every single culture I think in the pacific ocean they're particularly used as rain crystals to call in the rain now what I like about a quartz crystal is that they have their own energy they produce and I don't know the physics of it but you'll know this if you've got a quartz run watch they produce everlasting energy as far as I can see which goes into your watch and makes it run I have no idea how it works I'm not a physicist let me know in the comments below if you are but this energy can be harnessed and this is what we're tapping into each crystal has its own type of energy but the quartz is the clearest of them all and the most easily accessible so how do I use crystal corpses in my every day obviously I use it in a pendulum to help amplify everything from speaking with spirits to understanding my intuition to divination so if I'm using tarot cards I will use my crystal pendulum to help me understand what I'm looking at I do think that crystal quartz I know it's called the master stone but I think it actually might well be because you can use it for everything protection healing amplification divination understanding anything it's difficult isn't it thinking about it I don't know whether I would go for a clear quartz crystal this particular one or I would actually choose this carnelian I don't think I can choose between them actually especially this one it's particularly strong carnelian and finally we come on to my last essential crystal which is the wondrous rose quartz for me rose quartz is the most beautiful and the most calming I love the fact that Cupid gave it to the human race and the reason why he did is because the Greek goddess Artemis was trying to rescue her lover Ardonis from Ares the god of war as Artemis went to rescue him she cut herself on a briar rose and the thorns of the briar rose drew her blood so Ardonis's blood and Artemis's blood mingled together and fell onto a clear quartz and this stone therefore took on a pink hue and represents love keep them by your bedside to ensure that you're bringing attraction into your life it's a really good one for children as well because it's quite a calming stone so I used to put it in my children's bedrooms in order to help bring them calm energy at night it's great for them to sleep with if you use rose quartz especially with rose petals or rose essence in your love spells then you are going to really amplify that love spell and get the results that you're after it does have the benefits of this emotional well-being and an emotional stability energy coming from it and that is something that I very much need I need a bit of emotional stability all the time otherwise I'm off of the fairies quite literally anyway emotional stability is a great gift that this stone has teenagers when they are all over the place if you gave them a bracelet of rose quartz or rose quartz to wear that will help soothe those boiling eruptions of emotion and it's a wonderful calming energy to keep with you at all times I give a lot of rose quartz to my family but also to my friends in order to ensure that our friendship is always attractive I can't decide whether clear quartz or carnelians is my number one or number two but my rose quartz is definitely number three the essential gemstone to use in your spellcraft I would love to hear what you use these crystals for and do you have any particular rituals that you like to involve with them because as I keep saying we learn from each other and it's really important for me to learn from you as much as you learn from me otherwise please don't forget to go to patreon because my cover meeting is coming up next week and you might like to join us we will be doing I don't know what I haven't written it yet but we'll be doing something fun we always do come along and join us otherwise please like and subscribe so I can make these videos for you every week you know because if I don't get enough subscribers I have to go and do something else like I don't know become a cook again it's like going work in the local pub which I know I would hate I would literally hate that but you know we've all got to earn a living so please like and subscribe and I will see you very soon next week


Spotify really seems like their mission is to find how to not pay musicians. So we've long been promised that Spotify would be pushing audiobooks to their service, and here it is. But while many of you look and see a cool new feature, the reason why you can now stream audiobooks for free is that when you're listening to a 9-hour audiobook, you're not listening to 9 hours of music, which costs them much more money to pay. And seeing as Spotify is most often the top revenue source from streaming for musicians, that sure seems like a strong case for antitrust and the government breaking them up to me. Since constantly pushing podcasts and audiobooks instead of music listening, goes against musicians' main royalty and come in the streaming world, and that's against the law.


Hi, I'm Jason Clark and I'm the VPSales and Marketing at Craying Software. We're here at ST's Developers Conference today showing off our storyboard product. We're running across multiple platforms here from the ST tool chains and showing how we take our storyboard designer product and take it right down to their end devices. Storyboard runs all the way from the MCU platforms all the way up to the MPU platforms, so ST is a great partner that way because it shows off our scalability. Today we're showing off the STM32H7. Here you can see a coffee demo that we're running showing off how rich the animations you can do. So with storyboard it's really good at helping developers build these micro interactions and build the rich animated UIs that people expect to see with today's products. This is running on free RTOS. It's using the chromart acceleration. Here on the other side we have the STM32MP1. This product is running Linux with the OpenGL accelerator. Storyboard runs on there, same tool suite, same place, but we accelerate differently and we can take advantage. So if you want to use 3D models, you have a richer experience, a bigger product suite and you want something like Linux underneath you, we support you there also and once again same animated experience you're expecting to see as you got with the other pieces. So storyboard will take you all the way from the bottom end up to the higher end accelerated GPU solutions. So storyboard is available on our website for everybody to try. There's a 30 day trial and also we have demo images for all the ST platforms. So if you want to see how we look on any platform you can download it immediately. Just go to our website, sign up either for the demo images or the eval and we'll send you an email back. So give it a try today and we look forward to working with you.