How's it going? Good, good. So Ron already said I'm here to talk about the tie that binds. Why email is the key to maximizing your email marketing ROI. And I'm Justine. So hello there. That was a look on my face when they asked me to come back and present at MozCon again. I was like, ah, right? I had to change my hair and my glasses just to make sure you guys wouldn't recognize me this time. But I'm Meledore on Twitter, and litmus is litmus app. I'm really privileged to be able to be back here and be able to talk to you guys again. So the more you tweet, maybe more I can come back next year. So the slides and a lot of the resources I'm going to talk about are already up on a landing page. I always say that if you take a picture of one slide today, this is the picture or the slide that you want to do it on. So it's litmus.com slash LP slash MozCon. And I'll show it again at the end, just so you know. I have been a huge fan of karma for years. They saw these beautifully designed Wi-Fi hotspots and the data to go along with it. In fact, I first heard about karma from a friend several years ago. They'd reached this ultimate phase of the marketing funnel where they'd turned into an advocate. They exposed me to the brand. I'd converted as a customer. And then I became an advocate too. Amazing. Their value prop from day one was pay as you go. You didn't have to sign a contract or pay a monthly fee. You just got this Wi-Fi hotspot that worked all the time and didn't really have any strings attached. It solved a really unique consumer problem. And their branded marketing communications backed it up. The sub-defines on their emails were amazing, magical even. They notified me when I'd earned extra data whenever I shared my Wi-Fi hotspot with other people in public. And they also encouraged me to get outside when the weather was nice. You know, I've actually worked on a park bench with Wi-Fi hotspot before. It's kind of an amazing experience. It seemed like their emails were always about you and never about them. My inbox was just full of all this love and good karma. So that love didn't stop at the inbox. It continued with great copywriting and customer-centric value in the emails themselves. They talk about their commitment to you, the customer, and all the value that they're bringing you, by bringing you online whenever and wherever you want. It never felt like they were selling you something. So when they did finally go to sell you something, it didn't really feel like it. It just felt like, you know, good karma. One of my favorite emails of all time, like seriously of all time, not just from karma, but any email I've ever received is this one. It looks really simple. It just says, hey, your karma battery is dying. But the brilliance of it is that they wanted me to recharge it. Because the more I kept using the karma hotspot, the more I was getting value from it as a customer, but the more data I had to buy from them. It was a win-win proposition. It was benefiting them and it was benefiting me. They were creating a ton of goodwill with customers by doing their branding and marketing communications this way. And they were fulfilling the promise of their brand name. They were creating good karma. It was like this amazing feedback loop of just pure goodness. You know, we toil away at email because we feel like it's something that we just have to do. Like it's another box in our marketing arsenal that we have to check. And we don't really think anybody notices it or pays attention, or it might not have that much impact. Like who cares about opens and clicks anyway, right? But the more great emails that karma put out into the universe, the more good karma they got in return. This is what we want, right? This is doing our jobs as marketers. This is brilliant. This is good work. The kind of marketing that really no one kind of sees but occasionally people tweet about positively. I know I like that kind of marketing when it happens to me at Litmus. So our jobs as marketers is to sit at the intersection between what our customers need and what our business needs and act as a translator between the two. Whenever we can overlap the needs of our audience with the needs of our business, that's when that magic and marketing becomes really, really powerful. That's good karma. But then, dun, dun, dun. You know the story couldn't have a totally happy ending, right? In August of last year, I just kind of stopped getting those brilliant, well-branded marketing emails from karma. They just completely felt silent. I kept getting the transactional emails that told me when people shared my wifi or my battery died. But aside from that, I didn't really get anything anymore for like four months. But then on Christmas day, what a great present. They started again. Well, sort of. Gone was the brilliant copywriting and customer-focused message. In its place was these shouty, all-cap subject lines that demanded that I buy more data at a discount. And it was a limited-time discount, but the discount happened like every other day. So Gone was the customer-focused copywriting. Gone was the value proposition that I'd come to expect. And in its place was nothing but buzzwords and vague marketing speak shouting at me about a grandfather refuel program that they kept using RGP as an acronym. And I'm like, what is this? If I weren't a marketer, I might not have any idea what they're talking about. It seemed more like an internal marketing brief that accidentally got sent from their ESP than something that you'd actually want to send your customers on purpose. And their customers noticed. It started off friendly here with Erin saying, here's some friendly feedback.  Thanks, Erin. Then Stanford chimes in.  Finally, Annika asked, seriously, what happened? Hey Karma, blink two times if you're in danger. It's my favorite one too. So I'm with Annika like, seriously, what happened? Their emails went from brilliant to spammy in just four months. They went from near daily customer value to almost these promotional shouty emails that didn't really even say anything of meaning. I've never seen a brand crash so quickly and so far. Clearly the marketing team was given new goals or maybe a new marketing team was brought in altogether. And they no longer had a brand and a trust component to their goal setting for their email program. It became painfully obvious that the goals of their emails were to get clicks, opens, conversions, and to get sales. It got so bad that a customer even penned an article that said how my favorite company failed me. They started off by saying, I work Karma's shirts religiously and I believed in the product, the brand and the people behind it. Then they said, everything changed and I have nothing but hatred. That's strong. The CEO left, a new board took over and changed everything I knew about the product. That's crazy. All those people on Twitter were right. Something drastic had shifted internally at Karma and it was completely evident through their email program. And that's not because email is just another box that we have to do. It's not another just channel that we feel compelled to do in the long list of things that we feel obligated to run. Email is a personal medium and it gets delivered to one of the most personal digital spaces that we have, which is the inbox. And as email, more than any other channel, it exposes our work as marketers. It exposes the goals behind our business and our marketing efforts. Our KPIs become really, really obvious when we send emails like this, for better or for worse. So good Karma was sending subscriber-centric emails that really talked about the value of the product and were valuable to the customers as well. Bad Karma was sending buzzword-laden emails that had shouty caps and acronyms that no one understands. These emails were the tie that bound the entire customer experience at Karma together. Their business strategy pivot became painfully obvious through their email program alone. So what happened? The user needs part of that Venn diagram just completely fell out of the equation. So as marketers, we can't focus just on our goals or the goals of our business. The goals of our business should be to drive lifetime value. But as marketers, sometimes we get caught in the day-to-day goals, things like opens, clicks, sometimes even sales. But our subscribers care about things like value and fun and relevance. So email at Karma became a box that was checked, a means to an end.  And their email communications just made it really obvious what was going on. In some respects, we've all become Karma in some ways. We've lost our way as marketers. We have all these channels and priorities and goals and processes and tools and KPIs, and that's what we're focused on. We're not always focused on the long tail or have our eyes on the prize. And we track our progress and we show our work as marketers based upon getting the open, getting the click, making the sale. Your email tool probably doesn't have a report that shows lifetime value or brand sentiment online and how people are reacting to your emails. But you might think it's nothing, but it's really the tie that binds. The email channel is gonna show the nature and the quality of our work as marketers. So most marketing is really selfish, right? With very few exceptions, we're not solving world peace or creating, solving world hunger with our emails. But when we take subscriber trust and magic completely out of the equation, all we're left with is bad karma. So I bet those Karma emails had a lot of opens and a lot of clicks, right? You can even tell by on Twitter, like all those people definitely opened the email because they had to read it in order to tweet all these nasty things about it. But how many people unsubscribed? How many people left Karma altogether? What was the revenue impact? What was the lifetime value impact? Email has this opportunity to make or break our customer relationships. It shows our work and our intent behind our brand. So my question to you is, how are you showing your work? How are you showing your intent through your marketing program? And how do we make sure that our email program reflects the quality of everything that we wanna do? So Vicky Ghee is a product manager at Amazon. And she actually has a really great story to tell about how they shifted their mindset about how customer goals and business goals align at Amazon. In 2010, a customer contacted Jeff Bezos. FYI, all of you guys can email Jeff Bezos anytime you want, jeffatamazon.com. Maybe you can tell him that I'm not here so he doesn't get mad at it. And this customer was really, really upset. He was browsing the intimacy section of Amazon.com. We saw everything, including intimacy products. And after he had looked at a couple of different products and made a purchase, we thought it would be really helpful and probably earn some money if we sent him some recommendations for gels and other intimacy products. And surprise, this customer didn't feel that was helpful. This customer felt really embarrassed and offended. I mean, people are looking over his shoulder. He opened it up and there's all this stuff in the email. Like that wasn't at all something that the customer was expecting. That was a huge trust buster. And Jeff Bezos got really mad at my vice president. He held a meeting with Steve Scher, who is my org's VP, and he said, I want you to shut down the channel. We can be a $100 billion company without sending a single email so who in this room is gonna get up and go turn off email? That's really scary for my job prospects, right? Like we don't have to send anything if it's going to break customer trust. I think this is very illuminating because it tells us that email is a privilege, not a right. We don't have to send email. Customers don't have to get recommendations from us. It's just all marketing. So if we're going to do it, we need to do it right by the customer. We need to pay attention and listen to how the customer reacts to our marketing. And we need to adjust. So what does the Amazon threaten to do? They threaten to uncheck the email box because if it didn't meet their subscriber needs, they didn't want to send it. So let's talk about what unchecking the email box looks like in what you can do to meet your subscriber's needs. My colleague Chad White has this framework he calls the hierarchy of subscriber needs. It starts off at the foundation with emails that are simply respectful. Do you have permission to send them and are they meeting the subscriber's expectations? The next level of the pyramid are emails that are functional. Do they break when they hit your inbox or do the links in the images work? Pretty basic stuff, right? Then come valuable emails. The emails targeted. Are they relevant? Are they personalized? The very top of the pyramid are remarkable emails. And these emails are understandably rare. They're hard to strategize. They're hard to execute and you shouldn't send them all the time. But these are the kinds of emails that get forwarded. They get printed. They get screen shot and shared on social media. Those are really remarkable experiences. And one of the things that we can look at when we consider how or if we're meeting our subscriber's needs is something like spam rates. So we asked 1500 US consumers why they mark emails as spam. A lot of them said that they received too many or irrelevant emails. They just weren't interested anymore. They didn't subscribe at the first place. Come on guys. Or they couldn't easily unsubscribe. And what's really interesting is a lot of them said that they'd unsubscribe or they'd mark as spam when they had a bad customer service experience. This goes back to that idea that our brands are omnichannel and I hate buzzwords, but that notion that a customer doesn't think about your brand in marketing channels like we do.  They don't differentiate from the email channel, from the social channel, from maybe the in-store experience. So there was even some evidence in our survey that people that had a bad customer service experience by something like a cashier at a point of sale in a brick and mortar store, they go back and mark those emails as spam and retribution like a revenge spam later on. That stuff happens. It's kind of crazy. Cause frankly we make as marketers unsubscribing way too hard. 40% of the people in that survey said that it was difficult to unsubscribe from promotional emails. So there's a blog called Dark Patterns that showcases examples of strategies that are business focused rather than customer focused. Found this example there. It was an unsubscribe link that was white taxed in a white background. If I can't find that link, guess what? Spam. And 50% of consumers say it's actually easier to mark you as spam than it is to unsubscribe. That's crazy, right? So which is kind of funny, considering that marketers complain about the very tools that help consumers manage their inbox in the first place. I remember when this unsubscribe box was first released for iOS 10 sometime last year, like every marketer I knew was like freaking out and asking me for advice. Did you freak out? Be honest.  Even this guy on Facebook says, this is not good for marketers. This is why email list marketing is dying a slow death. Here's my argument. Inbox providers wouldn't have to create those tools if we didn't make it easy to unsubscribe. If we didn't send people stuff that they wanted to receive in the first place, this is a reaction to the consumer's need to better manage their inbox, not to the marketers' need to send them junk. Because really what matters is unsubscribes, right? Because unsubscribing doesn't hurt your center reputation, but spam complaints do. You wanna avoid that at all costs. You don't wanna hide your unsubscribe button when marketing is spam as the alternative. Another way that we can make sure that we're meeting our subscribers' needs is to look at what I call the subscriber experience. I break this out into two phases, into the inbox and then into the email body. So a lot of us really focus on the email body. We write great headlines, we decide what images we're gonna use, what kind of copy we wanna write, we A-B test like CTAs on buttons to maximize conversions, all that's really good work. But then we do all that work, we chuck it in our email tool and then you turn to your team and say, hey, what should the shoved-a-thine be? You've done that, right? I know I have. But it's crazy to think that it's actually the first thing that subscribers see. And so why do marketers, why is the first thing that subscribers see the actual last thing that we as marketers think about? Something to think about. So the inbox has your from name, your subject line, and this thing called preview text. And you wanna think about those things and actually maybe consider them first. An optimized inbox, especially on a mobile device is gonna look something like this. It's gonna have that from name, that subject line, and that preview text right there front and center. And that's gonna determine whether or not all the email body stuff gets seen. I talk about mobile because there's actually some truncation potential here. A lot of mobile inboxes cut off the second half of your subject line or that preview text.  And speaking of subject lines and from names, it's actually really interesting that we spend so much time A-B testing and optimizing and really, let's be honest, obsessing over subject lines as marketers because it's actually the from name is the thing that subscribers look at first when they're deciding whether or not to open your email. Just who the email's from. So you can use your brand name, you can use a company name, or I like what Core does. Rather than actually putting just their brand name or even a person's name, they start to set examples or expectations of what's actually in the email saying things like Quora Digest or People You Follow or Session Recap. That's great, it actually tells me what's in the email. And behind each of those from names is what we call the from address. If the subscriber replies to the email, this is where the email goes. So I don't know if it's out of just lack of awareness or maybe laziness or what it is, but a lot of brands use a no reply. So think about again, what that says about your brand's willingness to meet your subscriber's needs. It says, I don't really care about you or where your email reply goes if you have a question or a problem. And speaking of trust, 54% of subscribers said they felt tricked or deceived by a subject line in an email they've received. That's crazy, that's more than half. What comes to mind is those emails that are those gimmicky techniques that they use RE or forward. We call that in the email industry a fake forward. Don't do that, right? It feels deceitful, it's not actually a forward. It might get a lot of opens and clicks, but are you letting down your subscriber at the end of the day because you're basically lying to them in your subject line? So be straightforward and direct, don't do that stuff. And then if your email looks bad on mobile, forget about it. 43% of people said they'd mark emails that look bad on mobile with spam and 51% said that they'd unsubscribe. We've been tracking this data point for probably three or four years now and it keeps going up. That tells me that subscribers increasingly have really high expectations for the kinds of emails that we're sending them. I think the other channels, again coming back to the idea of OmniChannel, other channels are raising their expectations. All the people that are doing this well are training people to expect it in their inbox. And keep in mind that if people unsubscribe or mark your emails as spam, you can never email them again just because it looks bad on mobile. So rather than just doing what you do normally do, especially when it comes to email receipts, I don't know how many of you run a point of sale or send anybody any kind of receipt. But make it easily readable. These are two emails that I've recently received that one I could actually read on my mobile device, especially when I was at the store and requested an email receipt versus the irony's the cure. I went to the car, I'm obviously not near a desktop computer and the receipt is basically unreadable on my phone. So how do you make your emails mobile friendly? These are my favorite tips. Another popular slide to take a picture of. I say body copy should be at least 16 pixels. If you're like, whoa, justine, that's really big. Then think about 13 pixels as your absolute minimum. And the reason why it's 13 is because if you do anything less than 13, iOS like iPhone and iPad is gonna automatically resize it to 13 on your behalf. So you'll be stuck with 13 no matter what. I say headlines of 22 and then buttons of 44 by 44. Why? If there's any UX people in the room, you probably know that that's the guideline that Apple recommends. Apparently 44 by 44 is the size of your thumb.  You still have no excuse.  If the thumb tip is about 44 by 44 pixels, you have a pixel detection device attached to your body that you can use whenever you want.  And speaking of great, tapable touch targets, we have to stop measuring just opens and clicks. Don't stop measuring them all together because they're important, but stop focusing on them obsessively. Email software has a big emphasis on opens and clicks. It's really easy to track without some third-party integrations or other data sources coming into it. And you wanna look beyond just opens and clicks though. You wanna see the whole picture. You wanna start measuring the negative performance metrics in addition to the positive ones because that can give you a really good indication if you're meeting your subscribers' needs and studying the right impression about your brand. Things like bounce rate and spam complaints can really tell you, can paint a better picture.  And remember that unsubscribes are okay or even good. You wanna encourage those instead of leaving people with the option to mark you as spam. You can also look at your web analytics, right? We all like SEO in here, we're at MozCon. Or you can look at third-party tools, actually, Litmus does this, to look at things like read rate or engagement. And even if you have really high engagement or people are spending a long time reading your emails, that doesn't necessarily mean a good thing. It could mean your emails are really engaging and people are spending a long time reading them. It could mean your emails are confusing as heck and they're searching around for a CTA or how to unsubscribe. So let's also talk about the analytics part for a second in Google Analytics because I know there's a lot of SEOs in the room. So instead of looking at open click rates, what I've been doing lately at Litmus when I've been looking at the success of our email programs is looking at email traffic into our funnel. So we break, we have different goals in Google Analytics and we break our funnel into several different steps. We say you saw our signup flow, you looked at the pricing page, you ended up recording your card details and then you convert. We break that up and we track each of those as goals. And time after time, email shows up in the number one channel for all those stages in the funnel. So in particular, when it looks to our signup flow, email has the highest volume of sessions. Then when we go to the pricing page and we look at number of sessions there, we can actually see that people that originate from email actually spend twice as long on our pricing page than they did if they came from social. So all that stuff about how social media is gonna kill email, I'm not so sure about that. Then the trend continues when I look at the credit card signup page. Email sees twice as many pages per session than social does. Pretty cool. And lastly, if we look at conversions, email is once again the number one channel. Not quite double, but what, like a hundred more than even our own blog. So don't stop there. You also wanna recognize that a lot of the positive metrics that email can do for your business aren't easily trackable or easily measurable. Say for instance, you write a really compelling subject line and you have killer pre-header text and it tells the subscriber everything they need to know. They might waltz right into your store and buy something because you said there was a sale going on. Maybe they type in the URL of your site after seeing your email in their inbox rather than actually clicking on it. Or maybe they just do a search instead. So look at those ambient performance metrics and if you see blips happening in your business that you can't really explain, look at your email program. It might make a lot of sense. You also wanna ask the five W's the next time before you start your next campaign. This is gonna help you make sure that you're addressing your subscribers' needs in addition to your business needs. So who, what, when, where, why? And of course there's the bonus of how. Any journalism people in here should know this like the back of their hand. So who are you sending to? What do you want them to do? When is it appropriate to send the message? And don't get caught up on the when that we always think of when it comes to email. People are obsessed with wanting to know like what day of the week or what time of day is the best time to send email. And I'll tell you a secret. Every time the email industry puts out a report that's like Tuesday is the best day to send email, everyone starts sending email on Tuesday and guess what day of the week is no longer the best day to send email? Tuesday. So think more about the when in terms of the customer life cycle. Do I trigger a behavioral based image or email based upon something you did or a lack of something that you did? So think about life cycle rather than time of day and day of week. Where were the recipient rated? All those mobile stats, right? We gotta think about that. Why should they care? That's the kicker guys. That's the one that's gonna tell you whether or not you're meeting your subscribers' needs or even thinking about them in the first place. And then finally, how are you gonna measure success? Let's go beyond opens and clicks. Lots and lots of different reasons and answers to those questions. But again, these are gonna help you force you to find the intersection between your business needs and your subscriber needs. So before you do your next campaign, sit down with your team or your boss or just you and your loans himself if that's what you're up to, which is totally cool. I love solo email pernures, they're my favorite. And you wanna identify and agree on this stuff. So the five W's, the hierarchy of subscriber needs, are we meeting them? And then all the subscriber experience stuff. So tell you what, if you can't fill that out, if you don't have a plan, if you can't figure out the purpose, then you shouldn't send the email. And if you can't remember all of that, I actually put together a workbook on the plane here. No joke. That tells you how to uncheck and recheck those boxes. It's like four pages of goodness that leads you through that entire thing and can help you plan your next campaign. And so you can get it at limits.com slash lp slash mozcom. And that's all I have for you. Thank you. Thank you.


You want to win over a prospect? You want every prospect to end up buying from you?  They need to trust you and they need to know that you expect them to do business with you. One of the first things that I think of when I think about winning over a prospect is asking questions to get them to talk more than I do. I need them to talk more than I do. The whole gift of gab, that doesn't win over prospects. The prospects, they want to kick you out of the house. They're so annoyed by how much you talk. You ask questions, open into questions. Like, hey, what got you thinking about this?  Another way is when you get them talking, be relatable. What do I mean by be relatable? I mean, focus on relating with them, focused on having fun with them, joke around with prospects all the time. I made a sale up in Columbia, Missouri, door knocking this Section 8 government housing area, selling final expense, and I took out, I took a new agent. My sales manager back when I was about 20 years old, 19, 20, I don't know when it was, took me up to Columbia with a brand new agent that was struggling and wanted me to door knock with this agent, because he had noticed that I was making sales from cold door knocking.   The fact that I was high five in them by the end of the appointment and by how much I was complimenting them and hey, dude, you'd be great at this business. You're super, I would tell the prospect, Mr. Jones, how awesome you are and how fun you are and how great of a personality you have would be great in this business.  I'm complimenting them, I'm building them up, I'm being enthusiastic, I'm high fiving. And by the end, once they like, trust, they're comfortable, they made a decision. And what's really funny is that same new agent had just door knocked that house the week before. Dude, they didn't even let him in the door. And I'm like, dude, let's go back to that door and I'm gonna show you not only how to get in, but how to win them over, win friends and influence people, how to be enthusiastic, how to be relatable, how to get them talking about themselves and how to get them to do business with you today. So when you're thinking about winning people over, remember that story that just because someone to let you in once doesn't mean that there was no chance that they were ever being sold, we just gotta think differently, be differently, get them talking, it goes back to being unique. You wanna stand out from a crowd of thousands of insurance agents? You wanna win people over? Think about some of these things, have fun with them. Don't forget the human aspect of doing business with other humans, they want to do business with someone. They're just not sure that it's you yet until you tell them why they should do business with you. Thank you.


Hello everyone. I'm Christian and I'm the co-founder of Gebanit and Geban means market in Ethiopia. So before I begin let me tell you a story. A year ago we met a farmer called Kallela and Kallela was suffering by not getting market for a product and losing almost most of her crop due to spoilage. This does not only happen to the farmers only in Ethiopia but also happens all over the world. Farmers all over the world suffer not getting market with fair price also they lose 40% of their vegetable products due to spoilage, due to ineffective transportation and trading systems. So what can we do about this? Gebanit is an e-commerce platform that connects farmers directly to the in-buyers with on-demand and its web and mobile enabled platform. Okay I've missed a couple of slides so this is Kallela. So when we see our market it's $1.2 billion market on vegetable in Ethiopia only and would grow when we go to different crops and different perishable products. So we plan to charge a 2% commission from both the farmers and the buyers per every transaction value. With this we plan to make like $600,000 revenue on our first year and grow it into a $20 million market on our 50 or 2022. So currently we are on our pilot phase we have been running our pilot project for a year and we are going to come for a month and we are going to continue our pilot project for the next two months. Also after that we are going to officially launch and going to market and after a year we will be expanding into different value chains different markets in Africa. So our currently we are registered at Sher Company and we have been incubated on Blue Moon Incubation Center for the last six months also got seed funding for running our pilot project and the pre-pilot project processes and when we see our competition we have the our biggest competition is the local trading system where the farmers could currently purchase and trade on our market and globally we could find Twiga Foods and Farm Lead in the USA. So what makes us different from our competition is that we are we don't own any loges only any trucks any warehouse and we don't own anything we are just peer-to-peer platforms that connect farmers directly to the buyers. So our vision is to become the technology-enabled global marketplace that solves this problem for the farmers and a marketplace for agriculture. So join our dream and support farmers that are like Kaleela suffering all over the world and support us in our dream by helping us. Thank you. Thank you Christian. That's a great last pitch and let's move directly on to the jury. For the presentation beyond just helping you what is your exact ask that you would like to share? We want to think one we want your support help and we want an investment of 200 to 250,000 dollars for our next phase. So it's an online marketplace for farming products of small holder farmers right? Yeah. And how do you do the shipping then of the products to the end user? How do you organize that? Okay we use we used freelancer truck drivers that are near the farmers so we partner with them we register them so our models like Uber and Amazon kind of model so we my understanding is you said 40% of the harvest got lost on the way to the markets in other countries even 50% in small farmers because they don't have any cooling of the products on the way to the markets. How do you solve that issue with your Uber taxes? Okay what we do is the order is pre-ordered so even before the farmer has harvested before harvesting the product he would have a buyer on the city or different places that would order his product so as soon as the product got harvested it would be delivered into the truck and directly sent into the buyer. And how long is it like a normal drive of the product to the user? I mean what's the average? The average drive is maximum like six hours it depends on where the location is it's depending on the area like six to eight hours drive. You're just telling us that you can bring tomatoes and vegetables and fresh food in six hours without any cooling in a Uber taxi in a good mood to the end user? For example if you ordered if you ordered today you will not be ordering for today you might order for next week you might order for tomorrow for anytime you like then that driver would go and pick it up and bring it to you. And we are currently working on buyers like hotels, supermarkets and retailers. So it looked like a nice graph of growth when you hit the markets. This one? Yeah I think didn't you have one with this one yeah okay so I'm just wondering how do you how are you going to get the market penetration and go to market strategy to achieve those numbers and okay currently we partnered for example we're currently working on Ethiopia so we partnered with the agriculture ministry of the Ethiopia and part working with the ministry so the Ethiopian agriculture ministry of extension workers all over the country that work with the farmers so we use those extension workers to go to the market. Thank you very much I'm very curious about your competition you mentioned that you have competitors in the market and my specific question is what makes your team qualified to deal with that competition? So when you see our team we are both technically we have both technical background also business background and we are young passionate games trying to solve the problem of farmers. Okay any questions? And that's it then Christian thank you so much. Bye.


Good morning everybody welcome back to another episode of the nonprofit show We have one of our favorite guests of all time on she's like always Makes me have like a hair-and-fire like aha moment every time I talk to her if you were in the green room chatter with us We had another one yet another one Dana Skirlock director of recruitment from staffing boutique coming to us from The amazing Isle of Manhattan correct New York that is absolutely correct Amazing well, I feel like when we're with you We get like the truth and the amazing things because you're in the heart of it sister You're like right there where everything's happening New York is definitely one of the hubs for the the nonprofit Sector, I would say here in DC have the highest concentration of nonprofits in the country Maybe followed closely by like LA But here in New York, we are just saturated in the nonprofit sector, which is great, you know Which is how we've you know staffing boutique is has focused on the nonprofit sector for over ten years now Well today it's going to be really an interesting conversation because we're going to be talking about the intersection of volunteers and staff and this is something that I Swear I can't wait to get your opinion on this because I feel like it ebbs and flows according to what the general Labor market is and so because you're in the know on both sides of this It's going to be fascinating to hear what you have to say and I think that for so many of our viewers and listeners They're gonna really be able to draw some conclusions and maybe some new plans and strategies for their own nonprofits And again, we wouldn't be here without our amazing partners that help us with these conversations And they include Bloomerang American nonprofit Academy nonprofit thought leader staffing boutique your part-time controller 180 management group fundraising Academy at National University JMT consulting nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk We will meet you where you are from our app to streaming broadcast a podcast We want to connect with you so you can help Achieve your mission so we can help you achieve your mission vision and values. Okay, Dana skirlock Director of recruitment staffing boutique Talk to us briefly about what staffing boutique does because whenever we talk to you We have so much information that I never really afford you the opportunity to explain How you fit into our sector so could we take a few moments back the bus up if you will and have you help us understand Even like what your work a day world light is life is like Fantastic. Thank you for the opportunity and you know, thank you for having me on yet again. It's so good to speak with you so I am the director of recruitment at staffing boutique and staffing boutique is a Small to mid-size third-party recruitment firm So what that means is we work with you know, our clients to identify candidates for positions Whether they be temporary assignments meaning they're for a certain amount of time or if they're a direct hire Placement, which is a salary position For which we're conducting the search on the organization's behalf Staffing boutique specifically works within the nonprofit sector Exclusively so all of our clients are nonprofit organizations I would say, you know, the vast majority of the organizations We work with are here in the New York City metro area But that's gonna include, you know, the five boroughs Upstate New York.  So I've worked with organizations in California Texas, you know, but again, like I was saying in our green room chat There's just so many nonprofits here in New York City.  Hopefully call us And you can have us Work on a particular position that you need to fill that for whatever reason You either don't have the bandwidth the time the ability the the outreach to reach, you know The right kind of candidates sometimes people are calling us because they've searched on their own and they're not able to identify exactly what it is that they need And so and kind of all of the above. I've kind of heard every reason under the sun for why they need Somebody needs a staffing firm to help them. But essentially once you're then our client, we're going to work with you one on one. So we're going to have a phone call where we discuss What the job is some of the specs that hiring managers don't necessarily think about. So, for example, like, what are the logistics of the job? You know, what is the salary or the pay rate for the position versus what they're being asked to do? We can help advise clients as to whether they're feasible. We can help tweak the job description. And then we would then start identifying candidates for the organization.  So you as the hiring manager get to sit back get an email from us with a list of candidates their resumes and details biographical details. And then you get to pick and choose who you feel like could be a good fit for the job. And then, you know, the interview process is really organization led. So if you want to do, I wouldn't suggest doing this, but if you want to do 10 interviews that is totally your prerogative. We will, of course, help you, you know, help advise clients through that process too, because there's an art to The interview process. You don't want to go too fast. You don't want to go too slow. That's a whole other topic. I'm sure we could tackle later in the years. You know, we should, I would love that because when I talk to people, you know, I get calls a lot of times from people saying, Hey, you're connected. Do you know of anybody looking or, you know, going both directions, going both directions and candidates as well as organizations. Sometimes I can help. Sometimes I can't. But, you know, I am shocked at how hard people have to go through a process. And it's just, it's, I almost want to use the word demoralizing. I'm not saying just take anybody off the street and put them in your team, but it just seems to me like there could be some better strategies for this. And I think this dovetails into what we're going to be talking about today, because volunteers are such a big part of the non-profit ecosystem for good or for bad. I think, you know, it's just one of those kooky things we would never say in a for-profit business, well, heck, let's just get some volunteers in here. We're going to, you know, but I really want to dig down with you today and find out how do we navigate away from volunteers are not free labor, that their real costs associated with having volunteers working with your non-profit. What does that look like when we even begin to think about that? Absolutely. I mean, there's definitely an element of what is the cost benefit of having volunteers. So, for example, if you're an organization that, let's say you're running like a soup kitchen or a food pantry, I think volunteer staff are so crucial that you probably couldn't even run that ecosystem without them. There are other organizations, like if you're a grant making body where you're, you know, disseminating funding where having a volunteer staff is going to be a little bit trickier and there might not be a lot of like return on investment for that. But for an organization that does need volunteers, there are real costs to hiring like, you know, swaths of volunteers for a big project. Someone has to manage them. Someone has to train them. That's a staff member, especially for places like, not to name check anybody, but for example, United Way, there are jobs within an organization of that breadth that are like for a volunteer manager or a volunteer coordinator. So that's an entire salary devoted to somebody that is overseeing volunteers, which says to me that their volunteer staff is that crucial to the work that they do, that they would devote an entire salary position to somebody to oversee them. I think that sometimes within organizations, you can have a lot of bleed through in terms of what job duties each person is covering. And sometimes like the individual giving manager can also be overseeing the volunteers or, you know, the executive director is having to, you know, answer the phone sometimes. And so, you know, when that's the case, I think it can get a little bit stickier as to who is actually overseeing and monitoring the cost effectiveness of having volunteers. I think sometimes organizations can get into a rut of like they're used to using volunteers and nobody's evaluating, hey, how can we streamline this process? How can we make it as cost effective as possible? And that may not mean hiring an entire position to vote, you know, that could be $60,000, $70,000 a year or something. Maybe you don't devote an entire person to that job, but maybe you incorporate it in part of a specific job description that you have and make sure that it's delineated to the right person on your staff so that it's not spread thin between a few different people. And that hopefully would make it a little bit more, the cost benefit would make a little bit more sense. I also think that just, you know, getting the most out of the volunteers. So, you know, I think as a volunteer myself, like when I've gone to events or volunteered for a day, you know, working at a food pantry or something like that. The best part about it to me is feeling like the actually completed a task from start to finish. That is like something that I feel like is really satisfying for everyone involved. And so I think some of that is also as an organization deciding what are the crucial things that we need done. And then hiring appropriate volunteers to do that and how to best use their time because I think if the volunteer shows up and they feel like they kind of sat around and nobody knew what they were needing to do and there was no designated person once they arrived. That to me is where the cost benefit starts going down because you've got people showing up, you know, if it's not organized and they don't feel like they made a difference.  You can take care of that with volunteer staff and that I think is where it can be super helpful. There's also, you know, I'm thinking about those are sort of like the one day things where you volunteered an event or you help pack lunches. There's also sort of like ongoing volunteer work like I've seen on a lot of candidates resumes over the years.  And I would say, well, how, you know, how did you get that? And they're, you know, nine times out of 10, it's I knew someone who was working there. So it goes to show you how much a networking, you know, and being having a network is important. But I knew someone who was working in development and, you know, I wanted to learn the software that they use like razor's edge or, you know, whatever that might be. And so I've offered my services. We were able to make it work and in exchange for learning the database, you know, I was working, let's say, a few hours a week, you know, but long term. And so the organization gets obviously, you know, some projects done for free. It's a manageable amount of work. So, you know, we're talking basic data entry, not having them run the entire system, not having them do invoices or anything crazy. But, you know, taking bite-sized pieces out and thinking outside the box about how a volunteer, especially one that has experience or who's committed to or dedicated to the nonprofit sector, how you can utilize them. There's so many students that are getting, you know, between new school and Columbia getting their masters in public administration or masters in public health that an internship of any kind or volunteer position would be super helpful, not only for their resume, but just for their experience, you know, to add onto their resume. And I think there's a quid pro quo for everyone involved there. And so I think some of it is also, you know, not to stack more onto nonprofit professionals' plates, but thinking about how to utilize volunteer staff is something I think it's underutilized. If you're not one of those major nonprofits that already, like God's love we deliver, like they have lots of volunteers, they're used to having volunteers. I think a lot of other organizations could as well. It's just not as obvious what those positions could be. Well, you know, I'm fascinated by the things that you're saying because my next question to you is, based on what you've been saying, it sounds to me like you don't work with enough organizations that actually have a professional volunteer manager, volunteer coordinator, somebody that has, understands the ecosystem of this, the value and what you need to be looking for. It's just an add-on.  I mean, because to me that seems like it could be a huge missing piece to this whole structure. Yeah, I mean, what I would say is that with the major social services organizations that are very large, siloed and have a lot of funding and are very entrenched in the community, they have very robust volunteer programs. I would say that they are more on the side of sort of those like day-to-day projects, like Habitat for Humanity bringing in people and building for a day or a week. Working at a soup kitchen for the day or working a gala and you're picking coats or checking people in or something like that, that I think a lot of organizations are managing well. But there's a lot of organizations, what I found over the years in New York, there's the major ones you think of that are either national organizations or chaptered organizations that we all know. And then there are a lot of smaller organizations, like small to mid-sized that are working in social justice, women's empowerment, reproductive rights, just to name a few, that it's not as obvious where and how volunteers could fit into the organization. Especially when it's a mission that's very popular, like, you know, that just has a lot of public support behind it. I think the issue wouldn't be necessarily like if they promoted tomorrow, we have volunteer positions. I bet they would get a lot of traction. I think the issue is taking somebody from having the impetus to want to volunteer to actually bringing it to fruition and making sure that it's cost effective for the organization is where the trickiness is. But yeah, I would say there's a lot of organizations that, you know, don't really have a volunteer staff or a database of volunteers that they can go to wouldn't even know necessarily where to find them, or that there are people out there that would be willing to do it. Because there's even people who are currently working full time for whom there might be a volunteer possibility that they could fit into their schedule. So just recapping for everybody. Some of the brilliant things that you said and one of the things that I want to dig deeper a little bit into and that is, you really kind of reoriented my thinking here about the day, a day of action, if you will, right?  Talk to me about training and managing volunteers when you just have that one day because I think it's a huge POE point of entry where we forget that we can bring a volunteer in. And I'm not saying asking for money as they're walking out the door, but we can ask for connectivity and build champions for our organizations. And I don't know why we feel like we can't do that. And I'd love to get a little bit of your feedback on that. I mean, I kind of call it training, but it's almost like an orientation, if you will. That you read my mind. That's how I would describe it as well as like a formal orientation. And I think what you said that was so great is that you really will create through your volunteers, champions or ambassadors of your mission out there in the world. So who knows if one of your volunteers is somebody who's connected to another grant making body somehow that you can get funding from or, you know, your next executive assistant is their cousin.  So absolutely, I think your volunteers are going to be some of your best conduits for word of mouth about your organization. And for organizations that, you know, the market saturated even within popular types of missions, you can find 10 to 15 organizations that are working on, you know, women's rights or, you know, social justice or racial equality. So how do you decide which organization to support? You know, that sometimes then drills down to what they've heard about different organizations, what information is out there online, how your website appears to viewers and how professional it seems. So all of those things can really matter and having a well-trained, you know, taken care of volunteer staff that when they do come in can be great mouthpieces to then go out and to continue spreading your mission. And I would just say, and it's the same principle when people come into interview is that, you know, people talk. So when I talk to candidates, candidly, they will tell me if, oh, I've heard of that organization. My two friends interviewed there. They never called them back. They never heard anything again. They weren't that nice and they went to interview. And so I'm not interested in that organization. Now that those stories may or may not be 100% true, you know. However, that's the story that's gone out. So you never. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because it has impact. Exactly. And so you're losing good people, you know, for your searches and finding trained, you know, and experienced staff is at a premium right now. You know, because a lot of people have changed industries just all across the board. And so finding people in your particular field with the specific skills that you need in all industries is a little bit tougher right now and candidates really have like the upper hand. And so just coming off of the pandemic and the economy. So with that said, I think it's really important to like that customer service, that white glove service, even if it's, you know, you know, I know hiring managers are so busy. I know that they've got a million things on their plate. But in the long run, I think that the cost benefit of making sure that volunteers, for example, when they come into your organization, they receive a formal orientation. You know, exactly what's being asked of them.  They feel welcomed. And so that they have a good experience coming in is only going to help you secure more volunteers.  It's done professionally. And everybody is treated fairly and very well. I think that that can go, you know, miles. It's like when you hear about a like a trend or a show or I think nine times out of 10, it's that you've heard from somebody that it's good is better than like a review and variety or, you know, a commercial. It's really if somebody you trust tells you that something's good. And that I think is the untapped resource and my volunteering can be really lucrative for an organization. I love that you said that because I think you're right. And, you know, it makes me think about that number that we use all the time on the nonprofit show and 1.8 million nonprofits registered in this country. There are a lot more that aren't registered and doing, you know, things legally, but you're right. There's competition out there. And so if you hear something bad or you have a sense that, you know, it's kind of a dopey organization when it comes to their volunteers. It's super easy to go down the block or half a block, right? And because there's somebody else there that will welcome you in and steward you. You know, always when we spend time with you, it's just the time flies by and I always have a million more questions, but I don't want to leave without addressing this. And that is how do you incentivize a volunteer staff?  But how do you get like that data entry person who's coming in a couple of times a week? What do you do to pull them in as part of the team? Sure. I mean, I first of all always advise candidates, especially if they're in between jobs, as I mentioned before, to consider volunteer work because it's a great way to build your resume. It's a great way to build skills that you'll need for your next paid position or that can help secure you your next paid position. And so I think that's how you can really market it to for some of these like longer term opportunities that may or may not, you know, come up or that you can start. You know, you can make the inaugural like ask for a volunteer and and and see if, you know, a hiring manager would allow you to do that. I think that if you offer it up and say, hey, like, can I find a graduate student that's willing to do this? I think the way to market it is saying, hey, you'll get to learn razor's edge, or you'll get to learn this particular software will train you on it and you'll get to use it. And if you need a recommendation letter, you know, outlining, you know, what you've done here. That'll be available to you as well if you complete the volunteer process. And so I think all of those things are so lucrative for a job seeker that that would make it worth it.  And so, you know, and I think that people are nervous about that just in this day and age, like about equity. And I think that that is absolutely true because nobody wants to feel taken advantage of and no organization, you know, wants to be accused of taking advantage of people. So I definitely think that it's something that just has to be thought through carefully. And making sure that, again, that there's a quid pro quo, like that the volunteer is coming in, but they are getting something very valuable, whether that's a recommendation experience, you know, experience with a particular skill that you know is lucrative for other jobs that they're looking for, you know, is I think how you would market that. And also just being a smart volunteer to like, I think before you take a volunteer opportunity, you have to think about, okay, I don't just want to work on this particular mission. I mean, that's maybe obviously going to be part of it. But like, what do I want to get out of this volunteer opportunity? What skills do I need to add to my repertoire to get the next job that I want? Which, you know, really is requiring you to think about your career and what the next steps of that career look like so that you can help identify what sorts of things you need. Then you can start going after the organizations that would provide that or provide, you know, if you have always wanted to work for a foundation, maybe the volunteer opportunities should be at a grant making body because that's where you want to gain experience. I think a lot of people just sort of go, oh yeah, I would do that and I would volunteer without thinking through like sort of, especially because there are so many different nonprofits, you kind of do have options. You can shop around. You don't only have to, you know, work at a soup kitchen and that's the only opportunity that there is to fundraise or to volunteer. And also the whole world of events, especially spring and fall for galas, so many organizations are doing events for fundraising purposes, and they need a lot of hands to help make those events a success. So even offering your services, emailing a volunteer coordinator if you do find them on your website or emailing the event manager or, you know, development director during that time and say, hey, like I'd love to work your event. You know, you get to meet people that way. You meet donors that way. You see how an event works from the inside out. If you're looking to get into development, what better way to view it in action. And so that's the benefit that you're getting from it. While the organization of course, you know, you're able to help them run their event and bring in as much money from the silent auction and galas they possibly can. You know, there's an immediate give and take that's helpful for both parties. They're also fun. I would say I have like all the opportunities like events are like some of the funnest things to volunteer with that I've done many times. And I think it's like you said something so interesting, which I hadn't really thought of in the very beginning.  There's a beginning, a middle and an end. And in the nonprofit space, we don't always have that. You know, we have ongoing issues and problems where sometimes we look down the road and we're like this problem will never be solved. This task will never be achieved. And so I think that's a that was an interesting a home moment for me. We only have a couple seconds left couple minutes. What do you, how do you feel about swag, like t shirts or buttons or hats or water bottles that you give to volunteers or nay, like what's your, what's your sense of that valuable or not. I think that in the moment, those things can be super valuable like it's just fun it's something tactile, and they're certainly useful. I am just personally trying to be more conscious about my carbon footprint. And so I do think we have to consider, you know, do they need a t shirt a bag and a water bottle that might end up in a landfill or in recycling in a week because it was just too many things. So I don't know what the happy medium is. I just want to always flag that for my even just for myself is like, how can we make sure that it's something of value to the people volunteering but also that is reusable and also doesn't make sense, you know, for them to take something that's kind of kind of end up in a landfill. And maybe just speaking to the volunteers ahead of time, like, what sorts of things would, you know, would you guys be interested in? Is it a Starbucks gift card for five bucks?  You know, because, but I think a lot of time with events, they have overflow from the event. So it's like the volunteers are taking things that were going to be there anyway, which I think is totally fine. I sometimes like when I go to like fundraising day or, you know, women in development meetings or I think there's a lot of swag and I don't always want like tons of things to take home but that's also because I'm going to, you know, many over the course of the year. But I think the ones that stand out to me are ones that are like specifically useful. So like a canvas bag that has like the organization's logo on it. Again, that's pre-advertising too when you send people home with that. Let's paper, you know, let's let's go like flyers and things that'll be tucked into them, but definitely the actual tangible reusable things are going to be like the best and the most green. I love it. Well, Dana, director of recruitment for staffing boutique. You can find more about staffing boutique at staffing boutique.org or reach out directly. You know, Dana, I very rarely put somebody's email address on the slide, but for you, I do because I always feel like go for it. When you're on, we end up getting so many questions and comments. Dana at staffing boutique.org will take you directly to the mastermind, Dana Skirlock. Always a delight to be around you and with you. I'm always amazed at your take on things and, you know, labor and volunteers, paid staff, executive suite, all of that. This is the lifeblood of our organizations. You know, we say no mission, no money, no mission, but the reality is if we don't have these armies of people working with us in all these different ways, we can't, we don't do anything, right? We can't get anywhere. And so it's such an amazing opportunity for us to hear your wisdom and learn about what this world of ours in nonprofit success can look like when we understand how it's all going. Another thing that is all going for us all the time are our amazing sponsors and they support us phenomenally. So, Blue Morang, American nonprofit academy, nonprofit thought leader, staffing boutique, your part time controller, 180 management group, fundraising academy at national university, JMT consulting, nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk. They are our valued, valued partners and part of what makes us successful as we march forward. Done now more than a thousand shows. Dana's been a part of that from the beginning. And so we want to express our gratitude to everyone. Okay, Dana, you've given me a lot of things to think about today and I'm going to really ponder some of these structural issues when it comes to our labor and looking at the volunteer ecosystem. It's been a fascinating discussion. Thank you so much for having me. It's always a pleasure to speak with you. It's been a lot of fun. Hey, everybody, as we end every episode of the nonprofit show, we leave with this message and that is to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here next time. Thank you, my friend.


Welcome to painting with the Twisting Great Vine. Here we make art fun by letting you bring in your snacks and your drinks, come with your friends. So I'm going to just kind of show you around so you'll know what we do. When you get here, the fun starts. This is where you can put your beverages, your wine, or whatever you want to bring, your snacks. We do have everything you need, ice buckets, cups, corkscrews, plates, napkins, lots of room. So just bring whatever you want. We have you all set up here. We have a spot with your name. All the painting supplies are set up, your easel, and we'll have the artist standing up here. Don't worry about needing any art experience. You can tell by rule number one, be kind to yourself. Your painting will turn out fine. We promise you don't need any artistic talent at all. The artist will be standing up here walking you through step by step. You can see on our walls a lot of samples of the kind of art we have. There are over 4,000 paintings in our art library now, so there really is something for everyone. You can either do a private event or come into an open session. You can bring your party in and join other parties, and then we'll just have one big party. Private events are great for birthdays, anniversaries, corporate team building events. The paintings are dry after the two or three hours that you're here, so they're easy to bring home. All you have to do to sign up is just go to our calendar at paintingwithatwist.com. Find something you like and sign up. We hope to see you soon.


We all know that the atmosphere connects and wind is a very obvious example of that and you probably think it connects because wind flows from high-pressure areas to low-pressure areas and if you think that you're right But why are some areas in the atmosphere high pressure and others low pressure and the reason is buoyancy? So in low-pressure areas The air is hot and moist and it's light and so it rises in In high-pressure areas the air is dry and it's dense so it sinks So it's buoyancy that causes those pressure differences And when you think about natural processes and you go back to the to to the root cause It's invariably buoyancy and buoyancy drives convection in fluids and it also drives convection in the mantle It drives magma's out of the mantle and that's what I want to talk about So let's start with a very simple case of convection between a hot and cold plate And you've probably seen examples of that your stove is a good example of convection in a fluid So let's take a Fluid between a cold plate and a hot plate The hot plate at the bottom of the fluid heats a boundary layer above the boundary layer at the bottom of the fluid and in heating that fluid It makes it light so that fluid starts to rise At the top of the tank below the cold plate The fluid loses heat To the cold plate and it becomes dense and it starts to sink and There's buoyancy differences between the bottom and the top are what drive convection There's buoyancy differences can be very small, but they still drive convection And more or less the same thing happens in the mantle with one fundamental difference that I'll come to The surface of the earth is cold. It's about 20 degrees on average The center of the earth is the core the iron nickel core And that's a thousand degrees hotter than the mantle above it. So the core acts as a hot plate It heats the boundary layer Immediately above the core and that's about a hundred kilometers thick. It makes it light And that layer starts to rise and starts to rise in the form of mantle plumes The cold boundary layer at the top Becomes denser as it cools And it starts to sink back into the mantle at subduction zones There's a fundamental difference between The fluid between a cold and a hot plate and the mantle and that fundamental differences difference Is that the upper boundary layer is cold and stiff So it can't flow back in in into the mantle in the form of negative plumes It flows back as a stiff body and those stiff bodies are called plates What drives magmas out of the mantle and the question again of the answer again is buoyancy The mantle has a density of three thousand three hundred kilograms per meter cubed Whereas basalt has a density of two thousand eight hundred and fifty kilograms per meter cubed So the density difference is four hundred and fifty kilograms per meter cubed If that magma is ten kilometers below the base of the crust Then that density difference is applied over a depth of ten kilometers And that gives you a pressure of four point five by ten to the six kilograms per meter squared So there's a huge pressure on that magma and that pressure drives the magma out of the mantle But that pressure is caused by the buoyancy difference or the density difference between the magma and the mantle


And following the prolonged industrial action by the academic staff union of universities ASU, the Nigerian Liberal Congress, NLC and some other unions will begin a nationwide protest today despite negotiations and interventions by consent citizens. The federal government and the ASU are yet to settle their differences after nearly six months. The NLC had alerted Nigerians that July 26th and 27th would be national days of protests across the country to force the federal government and the striking lecturers to resolve their issues and suspend the lingering strike.


committees that have contributed today. I want to do that in the context of those outcomes. If I take education to start off with, we want young people to achieve their best in this country. We want them to be able to access the same opportunities no matter where they are from, no matter where they live and no matter what they want to achieve. The draft budget invests near over £180 million to close the poverty related attainment gap, which was mentioned in the speech earlier, which includes £120 million for headteachers to spend on closing the attainment gap. We want our young people to have those opportunities at an early age, so there is £210 million of resource in the draft budget and a total of £500 million that goes on nursery buildings and nursery staff. We recognise the specific challenges, too, and are providing £12 million for mental health provision. Moving on to economy and fair work and Gordon Lindhurst's contribution, we want to see a healthy economy, we want to see businesses growing and thriving, we want to see jobs being created and people in this country enjoying a steady, fair wage. We want jobs to be fair. There are, of course, economic challenges ahead, so that is why the draft budget invests in the economy, which includes a new £50 million fund for town centres to drive local economic activity and stimulate place-based improvements. One of the things that I was most delighted to see in the draft budget is a new £1 million digital start fund to ensure that those that are furthest from the digital workforce get the support that they need, whether that is women returning to work or those from more disadvantaged backgrounds. Moving on to culture and Joan McAlpine, we want to celebrate our historic environment, we want to promote our tourism industry and we want to support cultural organisations. That will be the second year in which £6.6 million of additional funding will be needed to enable Creative Scotland to maintain support for its regular funding programme. Joan McAlpine also mentioned the hub offices across the world, and it is hugely important now more than ever that we are outward looking as a country and as a Government. Moving on to health and Lewis MacDonald, we want people to access free healthcare, free health services at the point of need, and we need to drive reform, particularly in light of the demographic challenges that Bruce Crawford touched on. That shows the importance of pulling a lot of budget scrutiny and discussing the challenges that we face across different areas. Of course, we need to invest wisely, and the budget transforms NHS with £730 million of additional investment in health and social care. It is right that committees scrutinise where that is spent. We are extending free personal care and we are increasing direct investment in mental health to £1.1 billion. Lewis MacDonald touched on the importance of long-term budget planning. Here, perhaps more than anywhere else, is the importance of targeting our investment wisely. Moving on to the environment and Gillian Martin, we need to play our role in mitigating and adapting to climate change, caring for the planet and using our resources, not just our financial resources but our other resources, wisely. The budget includes £20 million for Zero Waste Scotland to help to support that transition towards a more resource-efficient circular economy and more than £145 million investment in energy efficiency, fuel poverty and heat decarbonisation. Here, perhaps more than anywhere, we see the importance of preventative spend for seeing the economic benefits, the health benefits of targeting our investment wisely when it comes to the environment portfolio. There is a clear overlap of budgets. Moving swiftly on to rural economy and Edward Mountain's contribution, I certainly agree with him that we want people living in rural areas to have the same opportunities, the same services and the same level of infrastructure as anybody in this country. There are, of course, particular sectors—agriculture, forestry and seafood—that we need to support and invest in, because perhaps more than others are facing the challenges with Brexit. The committee's focus on ferry transport is something that I certainly endorse and the importance of investing in ferries. Moving swiftly on to Social Security and Bob Doris, we have transformed and we are transforming the landscape for social security benefits in Scotland to deliver a system that treats people with dignity, fairness and respect. The budget provides £435 million of direct assistance through our social security interventions, including more than £100 million to support those on low incomes and to continue, as we have been doing now, for some years to mitigate the hugely unfair bedroom tax and UK welfare cuts. Moving on to justice, Margaret Mitchell, the importance of access to justice, law courts, policing, which are indeed the foundation stones of our society to ensure that nobody is deprived of that access to justice. The budget includes £18 million to support victims of crime and tackle violence against women and girls. Equalities in human rights in Ruth Maguire touched, I thought, quite eloquently on the way in which equalities in human rights have to be embedded in every portfolio. I could go on, but I am going to stop now, because I realise that time is of the essence. In an international, I think that it has been a very helpful debate. I hope that it helps with committees that are trying to drive and be at the forefront of that budget scrutiny. Perfect time. I now move to Adam Tomkins, vice-conviner of the Finance and Committee. To close the debate, around nine minutes will take us up to decision. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is my pleasure to close this debate on behalf of the finance committee. I would like to start where the convener of the committee, my friend Bruce Crawford, started, which is to thank our clerks who serve us. It is clear from this afternoon's debate that all committees across the Parliament are well served by their clerks, but none more so, I think, than the Finance and Constitution Committee, and we are very much in their debt. As we have heard this afternoon's debate is an important part of the new process of budget scrutiny, which, among other things, was designed to bring this Parliament's subject committees much more to the forefront in the year-round process of budget scrutiny, with at least the following three aims in mind. First, there should be greater parliamentary influence over the Government's budget priorities and decisions. Secondly, there should be fuller transparency with regard to the budget process. Thirdly, there should be a sharper focus on better outputs and better outcomes of spending decisions. As the convener said in his opening remarks, this requires, as much as anything else, a change in our culture, so that politically we focus not just on short-term numbers but on long-term outcomes, both in Government and in Opposition. It is clear from what we have heard this afternoon that this has been an enterprise that has been shared seriously by committees right across the portfolio spectrum, not least in health, where Lewis MacDonald, on behalf of the committee that he convenes, said that the Health and Sport Committee has been in the vanguard of the revised budget scrutiny process, especially in regard to transparency and the transparency of the budgets of health boards and joint integrated boards, but where he warned us, in what I thought was very striking remark, that even integrated authorities who are statutorily required to report to Parliament on their budgets in a matter that directly links them to outcomes are poor at doing so, not necessarily failing to do so but struggling to do so, which is, I think, poor's for thought, not just for the health committee but for all of us. As I said, Presiding Officer, it's clear that there has been serious engagement with this process right across the Parliament, but there have also been some concerns expressed this afternoon by one or two conveners of committees, Edward Mountain, perhaps most notably warning us that we shouldn't be naive in terms of what we can expect from the input of committees into this process. I don't want to go through committee by committee what we've heard this afternoon, Presiding Officer, but I do want to draw out, if I may, two or three themes from a number of the contributions that caught my ear, and I think will require us to think a little bit further and deeper. One of them was just referred to by the minister, Kate Forbes, in her closing remarks on behalf of the Government, and that is the theme of preventive spend. Preventive spend is something that the Christie commission told us a long time ago that we needed to do much more of in Scotland, and notwithstanding the recommendations of the Christie committee and notwithstanding the fact that all political parties accepted and endorsed those recommendations, it's still something in Scotland that we're really not very good at. I think that we have to have an honest conversation in Scotland about why our parliamentary politics is not very good at delivering effective preventive spend. One of the reasons why we're not very good at it is because it's sometimes difficult to see the results of effective preventive spend within an election cycle. I passionately believe in parliamentary democracy. I much prefer parliamentary democracy to democracy's other forms, to direct democracy, but that's a debate perhaps for another day. I passionately believe in parliamentary democracy, but one of the flaws of parliamentary democracy is that we think that we need to see results within a parliamentary cycle. This is not a plea for fewer elections. This is not a plea for longer parliamentary cycles. It is a plea for what Bruce Crawford referred to as a change of culture, so that we accept, both in Government and in Opposition, that effective parliamentary spend is not necessarily going to yield visible or tangible results within the lifetime of a single Parliament. I thought that Gillian Martin spoke very… Can I just give two examples and then I'll happily give way to the minister? I thought that Gillian Martin spoke very interestingly about this in the context of the environment and what she had to say about health walks, about active travel, about air quality and about stress and the relationship between those aspects. Margaret Mitchell also talked about it very effectively in the context of the work that the Justice Committee has been doing. Again, another interesting example of what Margaret Mitchell had to say is that she said that the Justice Committee's bill scrutiny of the management of offenders' bill is something where their work on budgetary scrutiny is to the forefront. There's a direct relationship between the bill scrutiny work of that committee and thinking about the budget in a year-round way. What she said was that it is evident from the evidence that that committee has received, but without adequate resourcing, our management of offenders is doomed to fail. It needs to be joined up, it needs to be properly resourced, otherwise the potential for ex-offenders simply to return to prison and to cost much more to the public purse will simply be there. I happily give way to the minister if she still wants to see it. Kate Forbes, just a genuine question on preventative spend from a committee perspective for it to work. It has to happen on a cross-committee basis and committees being willing to recognise that a budget line might need to go elsewhere. How does he see that happen for a committee perspective? Adam Tomkins I think that that's a very interesting question. Later in my remarks, I want to talk about one or two of the challenges that I think have been posed by this afternoon's contributions. One of the challenges that's been posed by this afternoon's contributions is exactly that. I think that you referred to it, minister, as interdependence in your remarks a few moments ago. Again, there are a couple of very interesting examples of where spending to be effective has to be understood to be cross-portfolio. If we have subject committees that are focused on individual portfolios, how can we ensure that either the budget decisions or the spending decisions in those portfolios are effective? Two examples are striking. First, what Clare Adamson had to say about the relationship, the very complex and extraordinarily important relationship between child poverty and education policy. The second example, again, from what Gillian Martin had to say about the importance of environmental education, are those issues for the Social Security Committee? Are they for the Education Committee or are they for the Environment Committee? The answer, of course, is that they are for all of these committees. One of the things that we perhaps might need to see as we go forward with this process is more effective joined up working between committees. That happens increasingly in the House of Commons. I think that we might want to see it in this Parliament as well. It might address the remarks that the minister just made. A second theme that I wanted briefly to allude to before I finish, Presiding Officer, was made quite strikingly in Gordon Lindhurst's comments from the economy committee. That is not about the importance of preventive spend but the effectiveness of spend. He asked a very interesting question, which the minister's responding, I do not think with respect, referred to. He said that for every pound spent by the enterprise agencies, we are told, between £6 and £9 is added to the value of the Scottish economy. That is a brilliant example of the effectiveness of spend, yet the budget that we were told has been cut over the last decade of SNP administration. That is an example of the kind of long-term economic planning and the emphasis on the effectiveness of spend and on outcomes, as the convener said, that we need to focus on as we go forward. To conclude, Presiding Officer, I think that we have heard this afternoon that there are a number of challenges as we go forward in budget process. The challenges both for the future review of the fiscal framework, which the convener referred to in his opening remarks, and challenges also for the Scottish Government, whoever the Scottish Government is, at the material time. Challenges for the fiscal framework include the management and allocation of volatility, uncertainty and risk. We all know that there is increased volatility, uncertainty and risk in the Scottish budget. The question is, is that risk fairly allocated between the Scottish Government and other institutions in the United Kingdom? One aspect of that, which we heard quite a lot about this afternoon, is the relevance and importance to the budget of relative population decline on the health of Scotland's public services and the added risk that Brexit poses to that. Those are challenges for the future of the fiscal framework that, I think, from this afternoon's debate, the Parliament will want to take forward in the future. Challenges for the Scottish Government, as underscored in the finance committee's pre-budget scrutiny report, are first, of course, on-going subdued growth relative to the rest of the United Kingdom, and secondly, something that we haven't heard very much about this afternoon, but which has been absolutely central to the finance committee's consideration of this year's budget, which is the much lower number of higher and additional rate income taxpayers in Scotland than had initially been forecast. Whoever the Government is, those are challenges that are going to have to be taken seriously going forward. As I have said before in this chamber, we are entering a new period of devolution in which our Parliament is responsible for raising much of the revenue to fund our public services. That requires us all to rise to the challenge of using those new powers wisely and to manage the inevitable risks with a pragmatic and reasonable approach. Can I finish by echoing Bruce Crawford's view set out at the beginning of this debate? The biggest challenge that we face is cultural. Let's allow our politics to mature with a clear focus on outcomes and on what we are seeking to achieve, rather than arguing only about numbers, notwithstanding how important numbers can sometimes be. I therefore support the motion in the convener's name. Thank you. Thank you very much, and that concludes our debate on committee's budget scrutiny. We are going to turn straight to decision time, and there is only one question this evening. The question is that motion 15421, in the name of Bruce Crawford, on committee's budget scrutiny, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. That concludes decision time. I close this meeting.


Hi everyone, Joe for Jaspy's casebreaks.com coming at you with the random number block randomizer four. Pick your team 36, NT36. Mariners Yankees raised Tigers Mets Marlins. That's the, that's how the number block format works. Big thanks to this group for making it happen. Thanks for selling it out there, the numbers right there. Good luck, let's roll it, randomize. Names and numbers, seven times each, one and a six. One, two, three, four, five, six, and seven. Got David, Dan, and Nick. Seven times for the numbers, one, two, three, four. And a one, once more, seventh and final time. We got nine down to seven. All right, David with nine, Steve with two. David with one, Steve with zero, and three. Remember, zero gets any and all redemptions for those teams right there, including one-of-one redemptions, as it says in the description. David, you'll still get live one-of-one, so. Steve also has three, Ed with five, Nick with eight, David with four, Steve with six, and Nick Ozier with seven. Let's order these numerically. And when we come back, or sorry, we're gonna, in the next video, is gonna be the break itself. We'll see you for that, jaspyscasebreaks.com. Bye-bye.


Hey everybody this is Scott Graham extension entomologist Alabama Cooperative Extension Service at Auburn University. Today we want to talk a little bit about a newer invasive pest that we have in our soybean fields and that's the red bandage stink bug. So this pest is a semi-tropical insect normally doesn't overwinter in Alabama maybe in the some parts of the coast but generally we get too cold for this pest to overwinter in the state with when we have back-to-back years of relatively warm winters. This pest can overwinter as far north we found it this year in Prattville Alabama so we're on the research station here and we've got a block of beans that are pretty pretty heavily infested with red bandage stink bugs. So this this pest is important because it's it's more aggressive than our native stink bugs if you think of of things like green stink bugs brown stink bugs and southern green stink bugs which can absolutely be a problem in our soybean fields but this red bandage stink bug it does more damage when it feeds it can potentially feed on beans that are much more mature and cause damage than our native stink bugs so that really causes an issue for us. Now these uh these insects are are pretty mobile when scouting for them it can be difficult to do because as we're walking through the field with a sweep net or trying to find a good place to stop and and sample with the drop cloth they can easily fall off the plant or move in front of us so they can be difficult to find. Depending on the growth habit of your beans in an indeterminate soybean variety where we begin reproductive at the bottom of the plant and move our way up we'll find early infestations of red bandage stink bugs in the lower uh six to eight maybe ten inches of the canopy and that's an issue because it's difficult to get a sweep net down that far and perhaps we're not finding red bandage stink bugs just because of our sampling method. So sometimes you have to walk through maybe early in the morning or late in the evening when it's a little bit cooler just kind of creep through the field and and look for adults flying around within the canopy. So for controller it's something that we have to be a little bit more aggressive on than our native stink bugs so for these we're looking at anywhere from probably about four per 25 sweeps of red bandage stink bugs is when we're going to want to treat. We've got a lot of different options we're really like using tank mixtures of products like acid fade or neonicotinoids or even the pyrethroids if we can tank mix those products together they tend to give us good control. Now one issue with this is when we start seeing overlay of of populations where we have adults and immature red bandage stink bugs in the field at the same time we can really run into issues when this pest establishes itself in the field and a lot of times when that happens it really becomes the dominant stink bug species in the field and we don't see a lot of greens or southern green stink bugs we're primarily dealing with red bandage stink bugs. And one other thought is that uh you know as I mentioned earlier this red bandage stink bug can do a lot of injury on more mature beans so if we've got good uh dry down conditions where our our beans are maturing they're turning and and it's you know hot and dry maybe we don't have to spray red red bandage stink bugs later in the season but if we're in a wet period where those pods are staying those beans are staying soft there's potential for red bandage stink bugs to continue to do damage really all the way up until harvest so that's just something to keep in mind with this insect as we kind of try to figure out what it's going to look like for the rest of 2020 and future years as we see you know some some subtle differences in our weather patterns in the future. So another thing we need to mention about red bandage stink bugs is identification so these stink bugs are green in color they're going to be a little bit smaller than our green and southern green stink bugs but one way to tell them apart is they have a red band on the on their back right at the top of their wings now that is not always the dead giveaway there's also a stink bug called the red shoulder stink bug which can look similar and we may see in our fields from time to time so really the key characteristic of the red bandage stink bug if you flip it over on its back and look at its stomach it has a short spine sticking from the the bottom of their where their their legs come out back up towards their mouth so if you flip it over and you look and if you're looking in the right spot you can see it with with your naked eye but there will be a spine going from its belly back up towards its face and then also there's a difference in the eggs so generally when we think about stink bugs we think of big big clumps of barrel shaped eggs on the on on leaves and things like that now these red bandage stink bugs they are still barrel shaped eggs but they're they're gray in color and they're laid in rows of two so if you see gray eggs that are laid in rows of two with maybe 12 to 15 eggs in a row that's a good idea that you may have red bandage stink bug eggs in your field that they could hatch out in coming days