We have general questions. Questions 1. James Kelly. Thank you, Presiding Officer, to ask the Scottish Government what progress it is making in the payment of the living wage in public contracts. Cabinet Secretary, Rwzana Cunningham. Our recently announced programme for government sets out our clear commitment to a range of measures to expand the living wage in Scotland, including through public contracts. We've increased the funding of the poverty alliance to promote take up of the living wage accreditation scheme, and we will work with them to explore models to boost public and third sector uptake of living wage. We will host a living wage accreditation summit with business leaders, and the Fair Work Convention will prioritise the role of the living wage in their work to develop a fair work framework for Scotland. In addition to paying the living wage to those covered by our public sector pay, including those in the NHS, the staff of contractors working in our buildings will also get the living wage, as demonstrated through our catering and cleaning contracts. We will publish statutory guidance for public bodies on how workforce-related matters, including living wage, should be taken into account in public contracts, and we will implement provisions in the Procurement Reform Scotland Act 2014, which will require public bodies procurement strategies to make a statement of their general policy on payment of a living wage. Presiding Officer, could I take this opportunity to congratulate the Scottish Parliament for the recent announcement in respect of the living wage extended to contractors here in this building? James Kelly. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer, and I also congratulate the Scottish Parliament on payment of the living wage to all workers and contractors. The cabinet secretary will be aware that the First Minister recently announced that agreement had been reached with Mighty to ensure that all cleaners at Scottish Government locations would be paid a living wage. Can I clarify that I am aware that Mighty have a contract with Annie's Land College in Glasgow? Can I clarify that the announcement from the First Minister covers all cleaners from payments made through the Scottish Government, including those in the education sector and specifically at Annie's Land College? James Kelly is asking about contracts that are not within the direct purview of this Government. We want to encourage all those contracts also to be living wage, but at the moment the deal with Mighty is in respect of those who are working directly for and within Scottish Government confines. If the member wishes to raise specific contracts with me, I am aware that Mighty do contract in the higher and further education sectors. There will probably be some attention to be paid to that and a job of work to be done there, but the recent announcement is in respect of those who are directly paid through the cleaning contract of the NHS. Chick Brody. To ask the Scottish Government what action it can take to improve customer awareness of the dangers of rogue traders in the construction industry. There are a great many reputable traders in the construction industry in Scotland and there is a range of support to help people to find and use them. The Scottish Government encourages home owners to use traders who are members of trade associations. Trustmark is a Government backed initiative to help consumers find reliable and trustworthy local tradesmen to carry out repairs inside and outside the home. In addition, local authority trusted traders' schemes, the Federation of Master Builders, Find a Builder Service and the Construction Licensing Executive's reference service are all to be commended for helping home owners to find reputable traders. Advice is also available direct from local authority, private sector housing teams and trading standards officers. Chick Brody. I thank the cabinet secretary for his answer. While consumer education is a devolved matter, consumer protection is reserved to Westminster. Will the cabinet secretary pursue with his support Westminster the devolution of consumer protection so that in Scotland newly qualified, registered and appropriately named tradespeople like electricians, plumbers and roofers can carry out such designated work and so avoid heartache for households penalised by misrepresentation by those purported to be so qualified? Further devolution of consumer protection powers will enable the Scottish Government to create an effective, efficient and fair consumer protection regime that is focused on the needs of Scottish consumers and businesses. We welcome the new powers of advocacy and advice recommended by the Smith commission, but it is currently unclear whether or not power over redress is to be devolved and will therefore be seeking clarification from the UK Government. Both the UK and Scottish Government should start preparing in good faith for the transfer of the powers identified in Lord Smith's report. For our part, the Scottish Government will use whatever new powers are delivered to the Scottish Parliament to ensure we take forward this Government's work to create a fairer and more prosperous country for everyone who lives here. To ask the Scottish Government what action it takes to support local authorities in meeting demand for home care provision. Last year, the then Cabinet Secretary for Health and Well-being commissioned the residential care task force to look at the way we commission and deliver services for almost vulnerable people living in care homes. The report of the task force was published earlier this year containing a number of recommendations, not least to improve the commissioning and provision of those services. The Scottish Government accepts, in principle, the recommendations, and we're currently working with COSLA, Scottish Care and other partners to take forward its recommendations for the long-term transformation of residential care in Scotland. Minister, NHS Lothian accounts for more than one in five Scottish bed days lost to delayed discharge, with older patients particularly affected. In Edinburgh, £8 million is being invested in a new 60-bed care home at Royston, increasing capacity to around 600 residential spaces, and the council is increasing fund for re-ablement. However, health and social care is 25 per cent of the total service expenditure, and the council has to find savings of £142 million over the next three years. To balance the books, there are increasing care charges, or looking at that, certainly for this year's budget, and looking at moving to reduce the use of agency staff. Is there action that the Scottish Government can take now to address the underfunding of our local authorities to allow them to deliver the greater capacity that we need in social care services now? Minister? Well, let me be clear to Ms Boyack and to the chamber this Scottish Government is already taking action to tackle the issues around delayed discharge. In August, we made £5 million of targeted funding available to seven NHS boards to help to alleviate immediate pressures on the system due to delayed discharges. We have also allocated an additional £5 million to all partnerships in November, and this is leveraging in other funding from health boards and local authorities. Of course, we have jointly with COSLA established a discharge taskforce to oversee and agree priority actions to improve discharge from hospitals. In relation to Lothian, specifically in reference to the funding that I have mentioned, the Lothian partnership received £712,000 from this pot. I believe that the City of Edinburgh and NHS Lothian plan to use some of this funding to reopen Pentland Hills care home to provide intermediate care, step up step down care that will enable people to return home following hospital admission and where possible provide an alternative to admission to hospital. Action is happening. We need to see more of this kind of service being delivered and where many other areas are doing just that. Question 4, Clyde Baker. To ask the Scottish Government when it last met NHS Fife and what issues were discussed. Cabinet Secretary, Shona Robison. I met the chair and chief executive of NHS Fife yesterday along with the leader and chief executive of Fife Council to discuss how to tackle the issue of delayed discharge in Fife. Clyde Baker. I thank the Cabinet Secretary for that response. I'm sure that following yesterday's meeting the Cabinet Secretary will be well aware of the pressures that are facing NHS Fife and Fife Council. We've seen a doubling of low-come costs, a reduction in the number of beds and nursing shortages. Last week it was revealed that bed blocking was leading to over 11,000 bed days being lost in Fife. Almost three quarters of those were people aged over seven to five who were waiting for care arrangements to be made. I appreciate the Cabinet Secretary will go into detail about the steps she'll take to try and address this issue but funding does remain at the heart of this. It's been reported in today's courier that the NHS Fife and Fife Council have identified a £3 million funding gap which they're working together to address. How can the Scottish Government help to address this? I can say to the member that the meeting yesterday was very positive and constructive. We discussed the clear and agreed plan between the council and the health board that they're now implementing to tackle the issue. Their plans include the discharge of up to 60 patients before Christmas and the joint funding of the council and health board to continue with that plan for the rest of this financial year. We also agreed with NHS Fife and Fife Council that they would continue to work with the Scottish Government on service and funding transition to make sure that they take maximum benefit from the plans for integration, which will take place from April of next year. The member will be aware that an additional £836,000 has been allocated since August to NHS Fife to address the issues related to delayed discharge, but I want to reiterate, as I did yesterday, that this is my top priority in taking forward resolving this issue. We are putting in some short-term measures, but without a doubt it is restructuring and shifting the balance of care that is going to lead to a sustainable change in the way that we deliver services into the future. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to improve access to rail services for disabled people. The Scottish Government continues to support substantial improvements to railway stations, trains and the provision of dedicated assistance for disabled passengers provided by ScotRail. For example, Scottish ministers have prioritised to upgrade through the £31 million access for all fund, which has included the creation of step-free access at several stations across Glasgow. Bob Doris? The minister for that answer. Gilshall station in the cadre area is notoriously poor for disabled access. In fact, it is virtually impossible. I have met and corresponded with ScotRail a number of times about this issue and they say that it does not qualify under access for all criteria. I could look specifically at the barriers with his officials in relation to Gilshall station and can you tell me what other funding streams might be available or whether we consider extending the access for all criteria? Because right now my constituents, whether disabled or mothers with params, can't access real facilities in Coddor. Minister. Well, certainly it's the department for transport that sets the criteria that guides how we give priority for Scottish stations to be included in access for all. That is the fund that is dedicated to addressing access issues at railway stations. I suppose that in those terms they do not meet the criteria as Mr Doris has mentioned. I am happy to provide further information on additional support that can be given for access to train stations and the future meetings I will have in relation to disability access and equality on transport services. And look again at how we may be able to support this particular station but essentially the criteria set by the department for transport on the fund dedicated for this issue. Patricia Ferguson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. As far back as 2009, Transport Scotland were indicating to me that Gilshall station would not be considered because of its relatively, and I use the word advisedly, low passenger usage. It was numbered at that time as number 199 out of 343. But if that is the only criteria that can be used, I think that the Scottish Government would be well advised to consider taking up with the Department of Transport whether there can be an adjustment to that because stations like Gilshall will never be able to qualify for that kind of assistance. Mr Doris is absolutely right, it is a very difficult station for people to negotiate and do not have access to the assisted passenger reservation service that is fortunately available for those with a disability. I wonder if those are discussions that the minister would be interested in taking up. Minister. Of course I'm happy to pursue the issue because we have every sympathy with those who seek the most local access to their train station. There is an equality issue here as well. The latest information I have is that the station is the 14th busiest in Scotland of the 351 stations with 98,900 passenger journeys recorded in 2013. I would like to highlight the opportunity provided by ScotRail that provides alternative transport free of charge to the nearest accessible station for any disabled passenger who cannot use that station due to lack of access. Of course I'm happy to engage with the Department of Transport to guide us in the funds that are available. To ask the Scottish Government what sanctions there are on developers that make significant changes to the insides or outsides of listed buildings without applying for listed building consent. It is an offence to make changes which affect the character of a listed building be that internally or externally without listed building consent. I can refer cases to the Procurator Fiscal with a view to prosecution as an alternative or in addition to seeking prosecution the planning authority can issue a listed building enforcement notice requiring rectification of the damage done. The view of Scottish ministers is that prosecution for unauthorised works is best confined to cases where the work done is so radical that rectification is not practically feasible. There is a range of possible actions available in many cases the issue may be resolved with the submission of a retrospective application for listed building consent but in some cases the best way to achieve practical improvement to the building's condition is for the planning authority to issue an enforcement notice. I thank the minister for her comprehensive reply. Can the minister elaborate in any way on what action local authorities and indeed more importantly neighbouring residents affected by such works can take to ensure that the affected buildings in my constituency is returned to as much as possible its original state? Clearly the planning authority Glasgow City Council have the key responsibility here but of course any neighbouring residents or any person that are concerned about alterations being made to a listed building without appropriate consent can take action by reporting their concerns to the local planning authority in this case Glasgow City Council. There are a range of possible actions but obviously rectification is the best possible without prosecution and I would encourage them. Do you have got concerns to raise those with Glasgow City Council? Thank you and good morning to ask the Scottish Government whether it is developing strategy guidance for minimum standards for temporary accommodation and if so when will it be published? The Scottish Government currently has no plans of developing more strategy guidance on temporary accommodation we have recently strengthened the unsuitable accommodation order in relation to households with children and pregnant women in temporary accommodation. I am sorry that is quite a disappointing response I refer to the minister's response to my question last week on temporary accommodation and last week when the minister stated that the vast majority of temporary accommodation is of good quality and well managed local authority accommodation however a significant number of people are in poor quality and unsuitable temporary accommodation for long periods of time. For example on 30th of June this year 73 households with dependent children were living in bed and breakfast and hotel accommodation will the minister once again take up my invitation to visit some homes where families five a family in one bedroom are living in poor accommodation just to give the reality of how people are actually genuinely suffering. I believe that this is not only a responsibility but it is a moral duty to do so. I think it is important to restate that the vast majority of children living in temporary accommodation will be in good quality and well managed social housing and not unsuitable bed and breakfast accommodation and they will be waiting to be moved into settled accommodation. None of us want to see anyone living in accommodation that does not meet their needs and is not suitable for their needs and the housing regulator if there are issues with any particular accommodation then we certainly want to know about it and that can be raised with the regulator who will inspect the temporary accommodation that people are living in but I would say the homelessness prevention and strategy group has and will consider to consider any evidence in this regard to see if anything more we are clear on the importance of ensuring good standards are met as part of this and Scottish local authorities have been surveyed to identify a reasonable standard and cost for temporary accommodation and this has certainly informed the approach of local authorities and I am more than willing to speak with the member and the issues that he raised and if necessary I will not shy away from visiting accommodation that is not suitable so I am not shy away from that but the regulator will have to know about the issues before we can resolve them To ask the Scottish Government when it last met the UK Government to discuss the future of RAF Lucas The Scottish Government maintained direct contact with the UK Government on their plans for RAF Lucas throughout the period of the military basing review following the announcement in 2013 that the UK Government was to withdraw the RAF from Lucas and convert the base to receive updates on the implementation of those plans through the firm base arrangements which involve regular meetings with both the minister of defence and military contacts Ruth Campbell Minister will be aware that the department for transport recently closed its consultation on the UK space port in which Lucas was identified as a potential feasible location Can you advise if any discussions have taken place with the UK Government in relation to that matter as well as the potential for a feasibility study that could house a civilian airport? I am able to confirm that the Scottish Government officials received a briefing from the UK Government on their space port consultation prior to its announcement in July The Scottish Government wants to see the space port locator in Scotland and at this stage we remain neutral in terms of the six potential Scottish locations The Scottish Government and its agencies have offered to provide advice and support to any of the Scottish airfields that want to pursue the space port opportunity for the owner of each airfield to determine if they wish to do so In the case of RAF Lucas that is the Ministry of Defence We now move to First Minister's question Question 1


So welcome to Sapient. We're really proud to sponsor you guys and support this sort of event, and we feel really strongly as an organization that these sorts of things are ways that we can contribute back to the community, because we use open source all the time, and we see that this is a valuable way to support you. So I'm going to talk about architecting for the enterprise. And this is a conversation I regularly have not with just people who love the browser, but with people who love things that don't belong in the browser like Java, or .NET, or Python, or Ruby, or those sorts of things. So my name is Thomas Cowell. I'm the head of interactive development. I am also known as the dark lord of interactive development. I usually cause problems on projects and annoy people, joking aside, I'm here to support people in their projects and help them understand how technology enhances people's experiences, and how we can make technology an enabler as opposed to a disabler for people. To start off with, right. Everyone knows the web, right? Started 20 years ago? Sorry? Actually, I can test that Tims Burner-Lee started the web 25 years ago. So I actually want to go back a bit further, because if you look at the 60s, Tims Burner-Lee wouldn't have invented the web if we hadn't had packet switching in the 60s, if we had not had the dawn of networking computing with all these crazy network things that they figured out. TCIP, 82, right? The dawn of the web. AOL, bulletin boards, all those sorts of things. If anyone's old enough to remember, you got everything in text, and it was dial up, and it was really fun. Well, maybe. I'm assuming the images of naked things wasn't that good. So moving on, right? 84, DNS, first web page in 91. Mosaic, the first browser, right? Open source browser, pseudo open source browser, for multiple platforms. 95, Flash, oh my god, it's that old. 99, IE5, HTML4, in 2000, right? It's not that long ago we had HTML kind of standardized. And IE6. So that's 2000, late 90s 2000, that's what we saw, right? A web that was very textual, slightly image based, kind of clunky, bit slow, dial up was amazing. Moving on, IE6 and Windows XP, right? 2001, Facebook 2004, Firefox 2005. Ajax was really kind of driven to the marketplace by Ruby on Rails and frameworks like that. In 2006, 2008, HTML5, first public draft. I was working in orange labs at the time, when it was kind of starting to be ratified. And I remember the excitement around the fact that we could figure out how to do local storage and other things that were not there in browsers that would enable us to do more interesting things, right? 2013, only 153 companies, or Fortune 500 companies, are actually doing HTML5. This year, the glorious day will come upon us, April 8th, where IE6 will no longer be officially supported by Microsoft in the enterprise, right? Five years ago, it was no longer officially supported in the consumer market. It is not dead yet, it will still haunt us. So why am I telling you all of this? Because, oh my God, they have legacy in their systems. This is not something that's gonna, we're gonna escape from.  Actually, I wanted to call my talk how to bring the best in breed solutions to a technically conservative marketplace. But that was a little too long-winded, right? So we're gonna actually look to how we can get into the future. Going back to this map, right? I want us to focus on Chrome. Because Chrome is actually a pivot point where HTML5 and all these other things have actually really shifted in the marketplace. Look at all this history, right? Going back, there's a huge amount of history that we've had coming up. There's 10 years of nothing, right? We landed on HTML4. Yeah, CSS got updated to point one, 2.1 at some stage along the way. But it's only when we got to Chrome and that sort of push around Firefox, Chrome really pushing the marketplace and driving innovation and that we started seeing things to rapidly change. So what's everything built on now, right? Well, it should be built on HTML5. It should be built on good quality CSS3 and it should be built on really high quality JS frameworks. And what does that look like, right? So we've got thin clients, thick servers which do get, pull only. The original browsers, you know? You have to go to somewhere to get something back in return. We have thickish clients, thick servers which have some sort of maybe they do push but mostly they're doing gets. We have thick clients with thinish servers depending who writes them. And then there's an opportunity to natural push where we can do things like socket IO and those sorts of things as well. And why am I telling you this? Because I want you to understand that there's these things like low complexity pages which are things that are very kind of static and they have been around for a really long time that are actually quite useful and quite poignant today and do good things. Progressively enhanced page. I want to give you guys a sort of language that I'm thinking about things in, right? Progressively enhanced pages. This is like e-commerce solutions, right? There are a ton of e-commerce sites out there will actually fall into this category where they render up a really high quality static HTML page. Well, some may argue the quality of the HTML but they render out a really good HTML page that has a good, you know, well designed CSS that has this great sort of interaction and Ajax and all these sorts of things that make people feel like they're getting this really responsive experience. And then we have single page applications, right? These are really heavy transactions, lots of workflow. They tend to have this natural app-like experience. You know, you do these things and things happen immediately. You don't normally get that on the browser. And it lends itself naturally to push. So this is an opportunity where you can kind of push things to clients. You can push things to people and they will see a context and an environment change based on things that are external to them, interactions that occur outside of their control. Right? So we're talking about the enterprise, right? So what are some of the things? What are their constraints? What are the things that, well, don't generally keep them up at night but things that generally prevent them from getting their bonuses or make their jobs much harder? So SEO, really big one, right? So how do I get my widgets to be number one on Google so that someone comes to my site and buys it from me and doesn't buy it from my competitor? Maintainability, those are big things, right? These platforms can live for five to 10 years so they need to be able to maintain them. They need to have a process and an architecture that allows for it. The complexity of the system. So we as an organization have launched Marks and Spencer's recently and it has 25 disparate applications that exist that we touch. There is, you know, 40,000 transactions that occur sort of every day. So there's huge systems with huge bits of componentry that fit together. Platform support. Somebody in IT has decided you are using this CMS and this is the CMS we've signed off on. Perceive performance, right? So this is a, there's kind of this divide and I'm gonna go a little hobby horse on this. Performance is not necessarily what you measure, right? Performance is also what you perceive.   And so you've got this perception that, oh, they're doing something really important and big. But Gmail actually might have a measured performance of, oh yeah, it initially loads in half a second and five seconds later you can use it. Accessibility. Everyone loves to hate accessibility but it's important because actually it helps SEO and it helps people who have less opportunity to be visual or understand or do things in the way that we understand and do things to have access to flights or shoes or sandwiches or anything else they may wanna get to. Fragmentation of browsers, right? Today, when I was working at T-Mobile years ago, we tested for 50 different devices and browsers. Today it's getting way worse, right? So there's a huge number of platforms you have to support and it's gonna get worse. Google, Google Glasses, Kiosks, all these sorts of wearable technology that are gonna introduce new things that's gonna make it even worse. Browser support, right? Next thing. How many of you guys actually still have to support IE6? IE7? Don't be ashamed. Really, honestly, don't be ashamed. Right? A couple of weeks ago, I had someone talking to me about IE6. I went and cried afterwards. It's still there because actually there are some customers that haven't, you know, customers of our customers who don't actually know they can buy new computers or upgrade their computers. So they're technically trapped and we have to decide, are we gonna cater for them or are we just gonna treat them like the technically unsophisticated people they are and ignore them. Emerging technology. So this thing about Google Glasses, all these little things that are coming into the marketplace.  You have to appear to be accessible to everyone. My favorite responsive adaptive web. Great, whoever loves it, whatever. It's always gonna be there. It's a big conversation now with the enterprise. And a technical focus of the developers. So that's my polite way of saying there are some people who think Java is more important than good quality JavaScript. There are some people who don't actually care that it looks good in the browser. There are some people who don't actually think that it's important that people have a great experience. And that's not because they're as awesome as us or lacking in any way, it's simply because their focus is on algorithms or things that excite them and they're not like us. Oh yeah, by the way, they have legacy systems. So what does this mean? So let's kind of go through a few couple good quality architectural principles that will help us continue the rest of this conversation. We want modular components, right? We don't want 10,000 lines of spaghetti. We want nice, discrete units of code that are self-contained and they make sense. And someone new to the team can understand it within three days as opposed to six months. We want decoupled interactions.  And other components, if they don't care, just go yeah, whatever. And the one that goes, oh yeah, oh yeah, I'm interested in that. So there are these sorts of interactions where things naturally occur where there's not this dependency that that interaction has to be answered. And dependency management. That's probably the hardest thing to do where you have modules that load modules that load modules that load modules and it becomes a little meta. I once went to a model village. There was a model village inside the model village that was inside the model village that was inside the model village. And then I decided I should go good to the pub. So this is kind of to help frame the rest of the conversation, right? So these are all the principles that we all agree are great things that we should be doing and they are valuable, right? This is the way we wanna code. So going back to the original thing about static pages, this is Sapient Nitro's website. This is probably the most static asset that Sapient owns to date in the digital space, right? It is a flat HTML page. Oh, by the way, they have a carousel. How forward thinking, right? I'm not supposed to be discrediting it, but it is like that's all that's there, right? That's the only interactions. There's the only kind of cool things that happen. And it's really valuable because actually what is somebody interested when they come to find out about Sapient as an organization? They want a blurb. They want a bit of text. They want the carousel because it gives them a few things they can look at and it moves around. So, static HTMLs. Where do we wanna use this technology? Carousel, where? Informative sites which don't change that often. I've built websites for people. They're static HTML, why? Because they're only gonna change it once every year. And I don't have to maintain a CMS. And I don't want someone to hack the CMS. And I don't have to think about those things. And the hosting costs and all that, right? This is a really kind of, there is value in this. And this is where things, we may not honestly find exciting, but there's value because it gets technology, it gets things out there. And it addresses issues like SEO. Makes the content available. People can go and find out about it. The next one is, actually I'm gonna show you the site. So this is a site that, can I click? Sapient's done for Harley Davidson. And this is an interactive experience. So Harley is an organization. Have you guys ever ridden a Harley? Or sat in that on a Harley with the engine running? You have. How did you feel? I nearly fell asleep. So you're the antithesis of the sort of experience that they're talking about. Thank you. Well, I enjoy your honesty. So actually, I have to confess, I am actually gonna go get my motorcycle license because I've sat on a Harley. And I have the hunger now to ride a motorcycle, right? So there's this experience that Harley has is with their customers. Is it anyone who kind of goes on the site? There's no, there's music and motorcycle noises and that sort of stuff happening. But anyone who goes on the site gets to find this experience. Like, what is a Harley? What is the sort of experience you've got? And actually it's this engaging thing that you could never get by having a static HTML page, right? It's like, how boring would that be? I was like, oh yeah, the motorcycle. It's a pretty picture. Great. People wanna see it. They wanna know about it, right? So that we have these things here where you can click on stuff, you can interact, you can engage, you can find out more, you can explore the bike. And if the music was there, it's a little more compelling. Let's close that one off, right. So, and next page. So progressively enhanced pages, right? So that's what I mean by progressively enhanced page. That's probably blurring the boundaries a bit with single page application if we're being really technical.  You need, SEO is super important, right? Let's remember, SEO makes or breaks most e-commerce providers. It's the one thing that they actually lose sleep over. And the one thing that they wind up about. And actually, James, thank you for your talk last week. Cause it was really, if you guys, I'd recommend watching it because it's really highlights some of the challenges when you're trying to integrate a single page application framework in with an existing site where actually SEO is a huge requirement and how do you kind of address it and how do you meet those challenges? And the other thing is linger, right? So how long does somebody spend on a page, right? So I've gone to, I like cats.com and I'm clicking through things and I might spend 30 seconds, maybe a minute on there and I've seen 10 cats, right? And I'm happy and I can leave. And those sorts of sites are where actually this is valuable because you serve something up quickly and they go. And the creative is not app-like, right? It's really important, this metaphor of the app and it's hitting us in the browser so we want to make sure we keep that in mind as we move forward, right? So the next example is another Harley one. So you guys will please to know this is built in Ember. I'm told by my colleagues in Toronto. It's, I'm not going to open it up cause it actually takes a while to run but you can actually go through. For me, it takes a while to run cause the, do you want me to show it? Yeah, let's see, yeah. Right, let's find out how fast it is. Oops. Oh, no, I did it wrong. The click doesn't work. The click doesn't work. So let's do that. I just asked, I was surprised when I saw the lack of IE and disappointed secretly. But can I ask, how many of you need more startups? Raise your hands if you're working with a corporate planner, okay? And so a good number of you are working with a corporate planner and not working with IE-6 or more, seven, IE-7, so that's good. Can I ask, how many are working with education bodies or civil service or anything like that? Kind of are. Yeah. Anybody for us, IE-7, not some IE-6? Six is kind of, six we know is clearly dead. IE-7 is still lingering around like a bad smell. So this is the bike builder, right? You know, it's kind of a, it's a nice way to kind of play with it and see it. You can do fun things like swapping out your wheels. Takes a little while, because the network's a bit slow. I thought it was because it was Canadian. No, it's not because it's Canadian. Please do not insult Canadians. I will have to throw you out of the building. Americans these days, hey? So, you know, this is a good sort of example of, you know, you need to build a configurator for a car. Yeah, why not build it in a single-page application, right? Why not? Because there's a lot of interactions, there's a lot of things you need to do and it actually makes sense to do it there. And, magically going back. Right, so, highly interactive and transactional. I've found that actually single-page application frameworks are easiest to implement behind authentication, where SEO is not a problem. I've not seen a huge number of solutions where it addresses the SEO in a really kind of strong and a relevant way and maybe we're just waiting for Google to catch up. So, things like Gmail, Facebook timeline, training platforms, those sorts of things are actually where it's useful and valuable. Right, so, technical challenges, right? How do we address things like analytics and measuring, right? Do you do it in the controller? Do you do it somewhere else? Content management. So, right now I'm working with a client and they've said, oh yeah, great, you can do a single-page application but we need to be able to control it from a CMS, right? Because we need people who aren't technical to change labels and move things around on the page and make life difficult for you because they're gonna break something. They're gonna, you know, they need to be able to do stuff, seamless management and deployment. So, how do you address that as well? You can wrap up an application and plunk it somebody but how does it fit with the rest of the system? How do you make sure it ties back to all the other APIs? That everything kind of works as a whole. Authentic, coming back to authentication, right? How many of you guys have seen pop-up login dialogues on a standard port 80 page? Right, did it go back to a 443 or were they clear text sending your password and username back to the server, right? This is another thing we have to think about when you're trying to do a single-page framework because actually these are sorts of things that you may not think about when you're development because it's safe, it's secure, it's sane, you know? Nobody's gonna see it because I'm on my computer but as soon as you get into the bad world somebody is gonna go and discover that you've left someone's credentials in the clear and buy a whole pile of kittens in diapers and send them to someone else. I like tables, my clients like tables because it helps them understand things. So here's a quick table to show, right? And really I'm just gonna give you an overview because when I put up the slides you'll be able to review this as well. So about technical complexity, what is the initial page? SEO, performance, total cost of ownership, accessibility, responsive adaptive, dwell time, is it app-like, how much transactions? Do we need to support legacy browsers? Complexity of the system, can business logic exist in the client, right? That's another big challenge as well, right? Because somebody needs to be able to control that when you make one plus one equal three that it always equals three and it doesn't equal two. And then the server interactions as well. And then across the other side is just the three different choices we have and it's just trying to lay it out in a way that may be not clear to people but it helps give an understanding and a framework of making decisions about actually, like when is the right time to use these technologies? So here's the secret. That's my daughter, isn't she pretty? Be smart and flexible. Choose technology for the right purpose. And also this is a reminder, we're already really skilled at static HTML pages and progressive enhanced pages. This is something that the whole world knows how to do. Even the enterprise guys know how to do it in their sleep. Everyone knows how to do it. But we need to make a place for single page frameworks, right? It needs to be application like experiences. It's easiest if we do it behind authentication where all those kind of things that will fluster clients and get them excited and terrified and eventually Google one day will be able to do this but not yet. Configurators, highly interactive, transactional, right? And also where you've got a lot of JSON APIs, right? So if you have a mobile service that somebody's building, you could probably do a single page framework site on the back of it because you've already got these great services that you can interact with. And the other one is, I think this is a real kind of trick is when do you gonna do a hybrid approach, right? So you've made your great Ember application. It's amazing, everyone loves it. People are handing you money for being awesome. They're coming and signing up to your service. You're making lots of money. But there's gonna be a time when actually having a static page or a progressively enhanced page might make sense, right? And this is, I think this hybrid approach is something that will address some of those things. So the client I'm talking to you right now about this approach is login, right? Why not have it on its own page? It gets rid of all the security risk.  It's great, it saves all those problems. Google's doing it if you try to log into Gmail. Things like, where are we going? Privacy, right? I'm changing my privacy settings. I don't want something else knowing that or interfering with it or plugging in or something else, great. There's terms of service.  Why not just have it on a page where you can leave it and then someone in legal can edit it whenever they please?  It's gonna be a lot simpler if I just make it a page and then the intern can do it or somebody else can do it or someone illegal can do it. So before I close, this is beautiful glacier. Where is it? Somewhere in Alaska, I believe. Sometimes it feels like glaciers move faster than our clients, right? Sometimes they don't get technology. Sometimes they just, they're just, oh my goodness, this is awesome. Why can't you do it? And you're going, I don't get it. Sometimes legacy makes it interesting. Does anyone spot the funny button on this?  Don't care, right? Who put this into a machine, right? That's so cool, right? That somebody had the technical savvy to put, I don't care, as the response to something that comes up. And there are things, there are really interesting things that are in the legacy, in the environment. I worked with a guy who told me, I love IE6, right? Just when IE6 was in the pure peak of its hatred, I love IE6 because it makes me a better developer. Because I write this amazing code that is so solid that it can work anywhere. And that sort of attitude kind of really struck me as, actually there is some value in that. There is some kind of interest in it that makes it exciting and interesting. And yeah, it might be painful and you might want to poke your eyes out and you might want to lie down. But there are some real opportunities to kind of show your technical prowess and do interesting things. Thanking you. So any questions? Oh, go for it. Is it going to be an insult? You know. No, no, no. I love that one. So the question is, in my Apple free time, I wonder things and one of the things I wonder is, when do we start to see this big take off of single page applications in London in particular, in selfish? The question I have is, since I'm not out there selling, especially in the corporate world, what I'm wondering is, when you go out there, is it you selling some of the page applications? Because you think that the sex appeal cool factor will keep people excited or are they asking for them? And do you see a turning point where the demand picks up? That's actually a really good question. So I think, I said this earlier to someone who I was talking to about what my talk was going to be about. And actually London can be very technically conservative, my colleagues in the US have been doing single page framework stuff for the last couple of years. So the Harley-Davidson configurator, there's a few other things that they've done which are quite progressive and moving on. So this is a marketplace and because I also, we work with a lot of financial service clients, there's also an extra layer of conservatism with them. Which is, yeah, we know static pages. Yeah, we know progressively enhanced pages but we don't know this new fancy stuff that's been around for five or 10 years. We don't trust it. So there's this education you have to bring to these people because they're not necessarily ready for it. And there are opportunities where you get the right people in the room and it just kind of happens. So the client that we're working with, so the other, one step back. So we as an organization tend to sell a lot of Adobe CQ CMS. They're one of our core partners that we work with. And what I've heard is in CQ 6, which is in beta at the moment and due to be released in May, is actually gonna natively support Angular. So there's this, all of a sudden, there's this groundswell of interest because, hold a second, a big huge organization like Adobe has said, yeah, you can use Angular. We support this. This is something that you guys should sign up to as well. So there, I think there'll be a real shift in the next sort of year because somebody like CQ is actually changing the perspective in the marketplace. So this client that we've been talking to, actually it's a much easier conversation to say, by the way, it's gonna be in CQ. And they're going, oh, okay. So it's not just my credibility. It's another person's credibility as well that's backing it up. I will ask no more questions but then we just do a follow up question, which is, so when, I guess there's even HTML4 really. Oh, back in the days. We started to have new features that are available, that people who were willing to pay what was considered a big premium to have that interactivity and that cool effect. They would typically be in high brand, well, less conservative but high brand sites. It was retail. It wasn't your back office application, right? And in yet, in some cases, I think there could be arguments made that there is a question you don't have to worry about, SEO when you're sitting behind the firewall and doing internal apps.  So, partly it's the business that I work with is much more sort of consumer facing. I know that some of my colleagues who work in global markets have actually sold single page framework stuff as trading platforms, right? So there is opportunity behind the scenes and those sorts of things to have that capability there. I think it's more just, I think the couple of messages that I want you guys to get is, yes, you can do it. You just gotta pick the fight, right? Cause there's gonna be, there are opportunities to do it. But doing it on, you know, Marks and Spencer's homepage is probably not the right battle to have today. Doing it on, you know, some sort of tool that's sitting in the site where you're picking your prettiest dress might be the right thing to do it or, you know, configuring the inside of your home or where that functionality kind of makes sense is the right way. And actually, I think a lot of these organizations are open to it as long as it's the right thing for them and it's not, it's like, it's small and it's contained and it's safe because it's not gonna ruin their entire business. It's something that they can work with. And if it fails, it's easy to fall back to something else. Yes? It's difficult to create single page apps that work for a broad audience. Yes? So the risk there is really high because if you have a massive consumer market and everyone is using IE 6.2, you know, Android browsers, then it's really hard to create a single page app that works that it still gets changed. But I think to that point as well, the two banking clients I've been talking to in the last month that we have, they've actually both said, oh yeah, we're thinking of deploying Chrome in our business, right? And this is like, well, hold a second. I thought you guys all used IE. And it's, even within these conservative organizations, they're seeing other platforms as an opportunity to help them progress and move on and address their businesses as well and not be tied to, you know, was it the ActiveX controls when IE 6 was popular? Terrible things like this that embedded in your browser, right? So there's, I think there's even a shift in the corporate marketplace as well because they're trying to comply with IE policy but they need to, you know, things are moving so quickly that they need to offer their staff something that gives them an experience that matches their expectations from home. Yes? It's your big question. Chrome Native, so he's asking about Chrome Native clients. So you're talking the sodium chloride ones, the NACL ones. Yeah, so like a kind of- So you're talking about Java plugins in the browser sort of experience, but for Chrome? I was talking about the CCL. Yeah, yeah, so this native experience, where you write an application, you then loads in the browser, it uses sort of APIs that are designed for the native Chrome client. So it basically is going to play down? Yeah. I think that's great if I was writing a trading platform for a bank because they would control their entire infrastructure. I think for, unfortunately, most people to ask them to download and install something, you know, Apple's managed to frighten a lot of people off of installing something from their browser. Yeah, so it treats it like that, but I think there's some security things and other stuff where it's not necessarily there. And Chrome has 30% of the marketplace. It doesn't have 100%. I think we can, I think it can be used. I just think from the general consumer point of view, it's not going to get the same uptake. I look at it as a sort of, I think actually that's more suited to Chrome OS and that's where the big uptake will be because they open the doors for themselves to have other sorts of things that run within their environment and it will really kind of, I think it will propel Chrome OS more than it will propel native Chrome clients in the browser. Any other questions? Go on. So I found that Ember and Angular and React are quite good for prototype. Do you think that's a way to sneak these sorts of tools into the conversation? So using frameworks as a single-page frameworks as a way of sneaking stuff into the, using it as a prototype to sneak it into the business. Yeah, when you're in the prototyping phase of some product, you might, you might choose to use a framework and they might see some stuff they didn't expect, cool stuff they didn't expect. Yeah, so I would never confirm or deny that but go for it, like honestly, like if you have an opportunity to prototype something because you know it's going to be thrown away, right? I love this. So let's do a prototype. Oh, by the way, can you make a production ready tomorrow? Right, so why not, right? So if it addresses all the needs, yeah, prototyping is an amazing place to show new technology off because clients aren't going to be frightened by it and they can go, by the way, I did this prototype and that, it's a great opportunity. I was going to develop a new team to create a prototype quickly. They can introduce a framework that has some stability, see? Yeah. And so whereas I think that it's a great way to build your skills, I don't know if you want to sneak it under the radar in that kind of way so you need to be a little bit careful about that. So to my colleagues point, I'll repeat it for the audience that we'll be listening outside is. So basically, I think what James is trying to say is you need to have a little rigor in your business around the sorts of frameworks you use for prototyping. So you need to decide, are you an Angular shop? Are you an Ember shop? Are you a backbone shop? Is that something that you want to standardize on? Great. Then use that for prototyping because it will be safe from our client perspective but anyone else in the business can pick it up and destroy your prototype afterwards. I think that, is that what you were pretty much getting at? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it's, I've seen stuff, people do things in prototypes and it's just like, yeah, great. Now we have to support another thing on top of it. But is it true that the corporates are already adopting standards in terms of single-page applications right there? Or is that still... I think that's still early days. Yeah. I think you can frame a lot of that. So, any more questions? The corporates care about client-based stuff. I work with small-scale business, sign businesses and tell them about technologies. They use them, they glaze them up. You know, okay? No. You know, how much is it going to cost me? Where does it get ghosted? What is it going to do on a one-to-one basis? Don't care. Whether it's rails and back, whether it's amber in the front or whether it's static, you don't care. As long as it does what they're asking you to do on the budget you're asking them to do in court. So, to your point, right? Why do you cooperate with them? So, I think to your point, right? So, just to repeat is, you're saying that, you know, small-medium businesses don't care what technology is as long as it's on time on budget, right? Is that correct? That's my question. Yeah. So, I think with corporates, the problem is you get some guy in an anorak who sits in the IT department who is interested in technology who will then want to have that conversation because he wants to have his job, right? So, I think with large organizations and corporations you'll have people who are interested. One of my colleagues here, he has this bingo game he plays with businesses where he actually tries to find the guy who's going to make ask all the difficult questions about everything we're doing to try to find out where the holes are in it. And there are people in corporations who exist like that because they have done web development at some stage or they've done things that will mean they have some sort of technical expertise whether that's dangerous or not. And to be fair, I think, yeah, those people annoy a lot of me, but there are also- They're valuable. No, no, but there's a few reasons, right? Even we have, you know, licensed arrangements so they have to use these technology bases and there may be, you know, HR concerns in terms of the flexibility of moving resources around the organization effectively. It's a problem that only makes sense for a big business.  So some of the best conversations I've had with people are the guy who's going and goes, well, I don't agree with your accessibility statement and these three lines I disagree with and then you spend the next three weeks arguing it out. And actually, I find these people as painful as they are to deal with, actually incredibly valuable because they help make your craft better. Well, yeah, but that's why they're paying money to have those conversations, right? So I know that, yeah, they stop you things done, but most small clients, like I have a small business that I'm winding up at the moment and your experience is exactly them. They go, what, technology, what? No, no, just get it done, right? And that generally is, most people don't care about those sorts of things. I understand that if you're in a conference and you're saying, okay, we're going to choose back-end technology has to be hosted somewhere. It has to run on someone's machine that's been paid for. We're going to pick where it's going to be done now, if you have those two as opposed to an open source framework. That's going to, but Edward and Angela are just HTML, JavaScript and CSS, so lots of difference to a call. Yeah, but clients, I think, so two years ago I overheard a conversation with one of our banking clients and they're going, what's this sizzle framework in your page, right? Because they have huge security concerns, right? Banks are terrified that someone's going to break in and they're asking a question about sizzle, which is a core component of jQuery because they didn't understand and it's, so in certain circumstances, those sorts of things they're going to be really concerned about because they may not understand it or they may have considerations for the business, like is this security? Is this going to create problems for us? Is this going to open risks? Or is this going to enable cross-site scripting? All these sorts of challenges that they have to walk down because actually a bank, if a bank loses my money, who am I going to blame, the bank, right? And I'm going to be really angry because it's my effing money that you've lost, right? So in that circumstance, they're really paranoid that the things that are deployed are actually safe for them to deploy and match the requirements that they have from a business to protect their own interests and to protect us as customers. Yeah. I think in-house developers, they may not know about JavaScript or anything. Yeah. So they worry. Yeah, big organizations, to Denise's point, is big organizations. You don't necessarily, when you hand over stuff, you may not determine the quality of developer that they hire. You know, in a lot of, you know, what sapient builds, gets handed over to a team of developers and we don't necessarily know the quality of people that are there or the technical competency of the people they're going to hire. So we have to, you know, consider those things as well. It's a therapist, and I'm not a therapist, let's say, we're a therapist. Yeah.  And then a 50%, it's actually a fairly legitimate reason that are maybe not invisible to you at that point. Yeah. I would say try to find the good reasons because it can drive you crazy. If you sit there, you're frustrated because you feel like this guy that I'm talking to is maybe, he may be, but actually there probably is some good reasons in there too and if you could just focus and try to figure those out, at least you don't feel bad about it. They are. You can go drinking with them afterwards as well. What's that? You can go drinking with them afterwards. Yeah. They usually have budgets for that. Exactly. If you're really lucky, that person will come along after you ship the product and then ask you to explain to justify every decision you've made in it. Yeah. And then you know that next time you better have those answers ready for that next. Yeah. First you have to hand over to him. Yeah. Can I have that one? The observation about S&E and the relationship to the technology. So in my experience with S&E, it's fair enough to say that they don't really care about whether it's looking at dot net jar group or whatever on the back end. But what they do have a focus on are the KPIs on the front end and in particular social sharing, S&E, et cetera. So they may not be aware or have an understanding of whether you're writing a group of people through your site, a WordPress site, or a single-page app. If you write something in a single-page app framework, it doesn't support S&E, it doesn't support social sharing. They'll pick up through their stats. So you might find that your technology decisions actually come in at a different point and at a certain level of life. And so it kind of brings in a loop back on that technology twice. So you want to ask what is actually important to you in your kind of when you go to recommend technology? Because in my experience, if you don't implement these key KPIs directly within these application frameworks, then it could actually come back and bite you further down the project or kind of like part project or further on S&E in part or support what it is that you feel. And so in my experience, they do have a technology understanding that it's probably more about the bottom line rather than what it is that you're actually building or the particular language that you're writing or what you're doing. And that comes down to, does it match your requirements? Look up and don't know. Yeah, but I can guarantee the S&E S&E could be interested in S&E and social-sharing for people to decide. And if that's a result, then they will find a way to sit there and provide us or not because they'll want to make sure that people find it. It depends on what their business is, but every S&E that I've worked with has always asked, will this hit a S&E on the social requirement? And so that can be written in anything. And that can see on what happens. That's my experience. And I suggest, just based on time, that we stop here. This conversation, obviously, is picked up again in the pub. So big hand for Tom. Right. Thank you.


Good afternoon everyone. My name is Mitchell Foster. My pronouns are they and them and I'm the coordinator for residents education in Holcomb Hall And I will be joining you this afternoon to tour Holcomb There's the placard right there Holcomb Hall That's right Well, if you are just coming in and joining us Make sure to make use of the chat option On the bottom of your screens for any questions that may come up during this tour But I joined you last week with Futural It's very loud out here, so we're not gonna stay here for a long time But as I was saying I joined you last week for Futural and now I'm gonna be joining you for Holcomb And if you are watching and you saw Futural too I'm the same coordinator for residents education for that building and it this building as well And I'm gonna explain how that works as this tour progresses You got a compliment on your mask from Leslie. Oh Thanks Point out any points of interest here in front of Holcomb. Absolutely. So Holcomb just like Futural is in a very good spot on campus Across the street across Garland is Pat Walker health center So our students won't have any problems accessing any services That require any attention for their health especially during what we're going through right now and On the north side of the building is the bookstore. So Just like Futural, it's also very close to the bookstore just across the street North Douglas. I mean sorry West Douglas Street and On the other side on the south end of the building It's very close to Union as well where the food court is so very cool spot And we have on this side right here is the Fulbright dining hall And it's also the building where We get our mail and packages and by we I mean me the whole staff and all of the students who live in Holcomb We have about 16 people watching us right now and we'd love to hear where you're from and Where you'll be coming. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely So this is my second year in the coordinator for residents education position I moved here from Northern California two years ago where I got my masters in California State and Chico and It's been a great experience moving to Northwest Arkansas. It's definitely a very good area Where there's culture there's a lot of good restaurants and there's a lot of good things to do Fantastic. All right. Well, shall we head in let's go And yeah, just to respond to Leslie if you don't recognize this is like from the movie up It's the house with the balloons and that Pixar movie Disney Pixar movie nice So just like future Holcomb Has a fob and you could only get in the building if you have a fob the difference between Holcomb and futurel is that here in the in the school year from 8 a.m. To 4 p.m Students and scholars office Which makes my office accessible too, but we're going to talk about international students and scholars office in a little bit And we're going to talk about what other things happen are happening in Holcomb or what we have in Holcomb as well Sounds good. All right. Let's head over here So now we're heading into the first floor study lounge where Do we want to point at your office? Oh, that's right. Yeah, absolutely So this is my office right here Very as you all could see it was very close to the front doors So literally you walk in the front doors. You look to your right and that's where I'm at So if you ever need me, I'm always in my office And if I'm not in my office, you could definitely reach out to your RA or send me an email And we could set up an appointment, but I'm very accessible this way and as I said earlier The front doors are open from eight to five During the school year on the weekdays So if you live in futural and you want to see me Because I'm also your coordinator for residents education You could just go in from eight to five through the front doors and see me in my office Sounds great. And hello Joseph glad you're tuning in. All right. So now We'll go and see the first floor study lounge that you could use to study So how have you been staying busy this summer Mitchell? A lot of preparation for when the students get back a lot of preparation as well for when the resident assistants are getting back So currently we're moving forward with our plans on RA training because RA's are gonna come back in two weeks So that's gonna be that's like what has been keeping me busy for sure for sure So this is another fog access door so you can't just walk in if you're not a resident in the hall Let me turn on the lights for you all So this is the first floor study lounge We have two private rooms or conference rooms And we have a bunch of tables and a bunch of chairs for anyone who might want to do Socially distancing of course And there's just a lot of space for quiet studying this is also a quiet study space So if you want to use this spot It is understood because of the signs everywhere that Everyone else needs to be quiet around you or you need to be quiet around other other people because it's a quiet study space Very good very good lots of places to study it seems like yeah And if you really want to be super private and super quiet on top of like it already being a quiet space These conference rooms right here actually also closed so you can close the door from for some privacy and Just make sure that when you leave this space that you leave the door open so that people are not assuming that there are people in there Great all right if you have any questions, please feel free to put it in the chat And I'll be happy to answer any of those but this is the first floor study lounge and now we're heading to The little kitchenette on the first floor and then we're going into the music room Let's go. Okay, and that kitchenette's available to any students who want to use it. I would guess absolutely. Yes So this is the little kitchen in the first floor of Holcomb We have a fridge that anyone could use Just a reminder because of the times that we are living in we are highly highly recommending all students to separate their stuff from other people stuff so when you use the fridge for storage For you to avoid Contamination, please put it in like a plastic bag or a tupperware and separate it from other people's belongings But this is available for all of the students living in a Holcomb as well as Our microwave too. So the only thing that's different from this kitchen Then the kitchen in the basement is that the kitchen in the basement has a stove and an oven But this one is just basically for fast food like fast food-making Or you know microwavable stuff, you know, we had a comment from Marla who said her son Collin was here last year and is returning again the same hall Yeah, so it had good experience with the staff here good experience with the community here And I was thinking this is one of our like we're at 140 do you haven't remember how many people reside in this particular hall 143 so it's one of our smaller Yeah, so it's very homie. I don't think we're gonna reach 143 this year So it's even gonna make it feel more homie. So I'm really looking forward to that too. Great. Great Well, thanks for that comment Marla. We really appreciate that absolutely and now we're going into the music room The music room has a piano that all the residents could use it has a sofa a Coffee table we have an ottoman and an armchair as well Most of the students that live in Holcomb usually use this also as a study space They like using this chair to study and you know casually study And some of them also use this to like hang out Yeah, of course using the piano, which is what this room is for it is a nice little piano lounge. Yeah and now we're heading towards Our Holcomb living room This is a very special community space and Holcomb in my opinion because of the aesthetics And because of what the space makes you feel it makes you feel like you're at home It makes you feel comfortable and it makes you feel like you're living in a place where Things just feel homey and good. It does have a nice intimate, but yet really put together kind of look to it Yes the other thing that's special about the Holcomb living room is in Holcomb we do a series called global series a programmatic series Where we feature a different country every time we have global series and global series is head by the graduate assistant in Holcomb as well as International students who are from that country or domestic students who have done exchange or study abroad in that country And what they do is they talk about the country. They talk about their experiences They talk about the culture and they basically share it with the campus community So during global series we turn this entire living room into a classroom so all of these furniture go in that other room right there and we bring out all of our chairs and Set up a projector and a screen On that end of the room and we basically get together This year because of COVID obviously where we're thinking that because of social distancing Protocols and requirements We're probably going to rethink the format of global series But global series is still going to be a thing that we were doing this year and it's still going to be a Holcomb signature program and if you have any interest in international studies or Just cultures at all it really is a great program for that. Absolutely All right, so so far I've showed you all the entrance of Holcomb my office I've showed you the first First floor study lounge I've showed you the kitchenette the music room and the living room and now we're heading down to the basement where I'll show you The basement lounge sure and let's to make a quick stop to by international students and scholars even though They're working from home right now. Let's let's do that. Yeah, so earlier. I was talking to you all about international students and scholars International students as scholars is a department on campus Whose office is in Holcomb and that's the reason why this front doors are open from eight to five on the weekdays During the school year is because we have staff members who work in this office. It's also It's also because of international students and scholars that We and in Holcomb get to do Exciting programs such as global series because of our partnership with them and because of the supplies That they also provide for the program. I know it's much worth the front desk now and what are some things that students might Do with the front desk? Yeah, so this is the front desk in Holcomb It's usually manned by an RA from 4 p.m. To 10 p.m. On the weekdays And from 4 p.m. To midnight on the weekends Usually in normal circumstances, there's a lot of people Gathering around here. This is where students build community. They talk to the R.A.S. They check out some stuff Usually kitchen utensils or pool sticks or ping-pong paddles This year we would like to encourage everyone to bring their own kitchen utensils so that we could avoid contamination We're also encouraging everyone to bring their own sanitizing Sheets or sanitizing wipes to sanitize all common areas as they use it Luckily for us is that this year We're going to be doubling up on sanitation of common areas in all of the residence halls including Holcomb And so there's going to be people sanitizing common areas in the mornings and then the afternoons Right, thank you. The other thing too if you all are just Checking in or coming in and joining us right now is that earlier I mentioned that across the street is where the whole staff and the residents get their mail and get their packages This front desk doesn't provide mail-in packages for our residents. Unfortunately We all have to go across the street to Morgan Hall to get our mails and packages Each student gets a notification in their email if they receive a package And all of the mailboxes are all over there, too All right, and Joseph you had a question about studying and reading a book feel free to ask and we'd love to we'd love to answer it International students and scholars absolutely. Let's do that Just like Christopher said on normal circumstances This is a very happy and joyful office and I'm pretty sure that the staff members are going to be coming back soon But right now it's a very dark space, but that is the international students and scholars office It's definitely a partner Of Holcomb Hall in international education and also in serving international students that live in in this building Fantastic. All right. All right now. We're going up to the second floor to check out No worries at all The basement lounge And I'm also going to show you all the community kitchen Christopher because we're very close to the laundry room right here. Let's go check the laundry out and then we'll head over here So this is the laundry room that is going to be used by all of the residents in Holcomb Hall We have different washers kind of loud in here, but we have different washers and multiple Dryers as well. So take a look. There's some vending right there in the corner. Yeah, we also have a new machine So this is the only laundry room that we have but it's definitely sufficient to our student population And your laundry fees are covered on your housing fees. So you don't need to worry about bringing quarters or anything like that All right, and now we're heading towards the basement lounge Where a lot of socialization and community building also happen in Holcomb We're so green. We have all our lights off. It's good So take a look around our basement lounge. We have um a big tv It's a smart tv so students could use it to log into their netflix account their hulu account their disney plus We have a pool table. We have a ping pong table and we have a few sofas For students to lounge This is literally where a lot of student groups come together Um to socialize and when I mean student groups, I just mean this is where the residents find their own group and find their own home With other residents Away from home. So it's a very I would say it's a very magical space to be honest Yeah, it's a nice warm space yellow walls. It looks very comfortable. Yeah so Again, this is the basement lounge and I want to show you next. Um, I want to show you the community kitchen Just adjacent to the lounge. So The difference between this kitchen and the kitchen upstairs is again, as I mentioned, this kitchen has an oven and a stove Um, the students can use to cook their own meals It's a very it's a very um Highly used oven and stove because a lot of our international students use their make their own food Um, and so it's always a busy busy space during the school year We've had a question from laura who's asking us. How are you? Are we how are we going to keep laundry and community areas safe with social distancing and uh, one one thing that we're doing to ensure um That those guidelines are kept Are we're going to be cleaning our bathrooms? Twice a day previously we cleaned them once a day during the week But now we're going to be cleaning them twice a day and that would include weekends as well So that's one way and then high touch surfaces will be cleaned More than they ever have been And as far as community areas and social distancing We do have some some tools in terms of academic Um Deterrence I guess uh some community standards that we're following that we can use if we have to But we're really not trying to do that We're really just trying to educate students on you know maintaining six feet of distance wearing masks at all time Those would be the main ones. Do you have anything you'd want to wash your hands? Very very important I'm having a sanitizer around you as you go around campus or as you go to the Common areas and also have um cleaning wipes with you too There are those that are in traveling packs that I always carry around When I travel or when I go from one space to another so that I could make sure that I'm just sanitizing my surroundings But housing will be sanitizing more often in community spaces that for sure. Yes awesome So, uh, we've seen the basement lounge here in Holcomb, which is a very fun area and then this is Our our only community kitchen And now I think we're ready to head up to the hall. Yeah, let's head up and see some rooms and I guess bathrooms and study spaces on the floor What floor are we going to? We're going to the second floor And the second floor is very identical to the third So, um, I don't think there's a reason for us to go to the third floor if you've seen the second floor You've also seen the third floor. So I think we're we're gonna be good And um, laur asked will there be hand sanitizer stations? There and I'm Are we putting additional? I don't think we're There are hand sanitizing stations, especially on the first floor Um, let us get back to you if we're putting more, um hand sanitizer areas, especially in the halls But the halls have bathrooms. So there's always an opportunity for you to go into the bathroom sanitizer hands I also showed you all the kitchenette on the first floor The kitchenette on the first floor also has a sink and A soap dispenser that you could use as you're going on your way out or you're leaving You could wash your hands real quick before leaving And we do have a lot of these questions answered On the housing website at housing.uart.edu I just published a new FAQ Earlier this week about that. Let's go and check out the bathroom first. Okay. Let's check out the bathroom It's not usually this dark either. Yeah, it's not usually this dark. We're just turning off all the way you have six bowls of toilets and five shower stalls here Let's go ahead and check out one of the shower stalls. Let's do it The shower stalls also has a changing station. So you walk in There's a space for you to change and then you walk further in and that's where the shower is Nice to have a seating area Exactly And should we go look at the study spaces on the floor? Yeah, let's go take a look So we have two study spaces on each floor as well In addition to the study space in the first floor in addition to the basement lounge if you want to use that as a study space as well, that's possible It's right up here We're coming into it So you can totally use this area to um take a seat Read a book Read a few of your handouts for class Um, yeah, and it's a very sunny space. It's always so bright in the day It's pretty cheery in here. It is very cheery. Yeah Yeah Would you say that you see students from time to time using it in that way like small study groups? Sometimes I see one or two people Sometimes I see just one they you know, they close the door so that um, they could get privacy There's a lot of opportunities in Holcomb For private studying as you could see there are like two little conference rooms in the first floor study lounge Um, and this is also one of those things that places you could close the door study and you know Um, get as much as you can from your study time. And that's why they're here. Yeah makes sense All right, and now we're going into the other study space, which is the smaller one But it's also available on either floors on both floors on the second and the third We have arm chairs, um for studying Students also frequently use this for quite a quiet space I don't know. It's probably about 12 feet by eight feet something like that. Yeah, I would say so. Yeah I think that's a pretty nice pretty nice size space. Yeah I want to show you all a sample of a double room in Holcomb So if you come in You'll see that there are two twin excel beds Um A three drawer dresser And built-in closets And also a built-in. What are you seeing in the built-in closet? Um, what do I see in the built-in closet? We have a mirror. We have a mirror. Um, we have a rod suspension rod We have spaces for your shoes And then another space for some more stuff and then you could also use The space up here for that storage So really a lot of storage space in those and then each student gets like I mentioned a three drawer dresser um this um desk And another drawer with a lock Okay, and we have another question coming in from Laurie and, um She asks is there a chance to see a single room? Absolutely. Okay. Guess what Laurie? We're gonna go see a single room Let's do that half a size of a double room. Um, rightfully so It has one twin excel bed It has one desk one three drawer dresser Um, another one that has a lock on it for private belongings and then a built-in Closet as well Same dimensions Approximately Looks like a couple more drawers. Maybe you're a couple more shelves in there. Does it look the same?  Absolutely. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone come in the fall in a matter of a few weeks I'm very excited to meet everyone who is going to be living in Holcomb. It's a very homey Community, it's a small community. So you get to really meet a lot of people and Be close with them if you so wish And of course thinking about social distancing and precautions I wish to see you and socialize with you and build community with you When fall semester comes Excellent excellent. Now is the moment if you have any questions for dimensions. Um, yes, we'll be happy to entertain those and Joseph asked I have another question about clean sustainable environment for safety on campus and you know, we do Do our best when it comes to sustainability encourage you to bring a bottle for yourself for water and And recycling is done throughout. Yes. So each floor has its own recycling bin. Um, so in the school year We have big bins up here close to The top of the staircase this way and then that recycling bin Is a space for you to throw your bottles your plastic bottles mix paper and Cams Great, great. Okay. Well without any questions about dimensions I think we'll probably sign off and keep the tour rolling next week with a couple other halls, but Mitchell, you've been a pleasure. We've we've enjoyed interviewing you twice this this week Uh, and thank you for your time. Thank you so much. Thanks for joining y'all And if you're watching and you're going to be moving in in the fall, I'll see you then