Welcome everyone to today's MARA guest lecture and our presenter today is one of our favorite people because she's a MARA graduate. Amber Crumweed has been in the records management profession for over 10 years and she's active in the Puget Sound chapter of our International. Always a good thing to be active in your professional organization. And she's a certified records manager and also a certified paralysal. Her professional work has been in the private sector where she's developed and supplemented records programs which manage several dozen record types across multiple lines of business in various office locations and Amber is going to speak to us today about her career path, how I got here, the career path of a corporate records manager. So right now I'll turn the mic over to Amber. Thank you Pat and I would also like to welcome everyone who's attending this presentation today and those of you who will be listening to this recording. I'd like to thank SJSU's Cliftonium for the opportunity to share my career path experience and hope it might provide some insight into one of the many avenues a records manager might take. I've hopefully left enough time at the end to fill any questions you might have. So either put them in the chat box or we can, you know, raise your hand and we can address them as we go through the presentation. So it's a pretty basic agenda. We're just going to do an introduction and then I'm just going to run through my education background, the work experience I've had in the records management field, then my MARA experience and close out with some professional development areas that I've been afforded because of my involvement in MARA and in with our men international too. So, so I've done the welcome again. Welcome everyone, I hope you find this interesting. So I hold an undergraduate degree. My BA is in organizational management. It's a basic baseline business degree because at that time I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to be when I grew up and I hold the Masters in Archives Administration from San Jose, I was ready last May. I'm also a certified records manager and a certified paralegal. The CRM designation came in 2005 and the paralegal certification came in 2008. The BA that I earned was through an accelerated degree program that had been designed at that time for working adults and at the time of my entrance I was three years younger than the minimum age requirement to be accepted but through a combination of many college credits over the earned and the two years prior to my admission, I also had to put together a professional declaration essay and had to secure multiple recommendations from professors and other business owners to support my application process and because of that I was admitted into the program. So it was my first experience with an alternate degree program. It was not as technically advanced as the MARA program. The Warner degree was not your typical bachelor's as it was geared towards working adults and classes were only at night and on Saturdays. And since the classes were held in satellite locations, the only time I was ever actually on that campus was when I graduated which is very similar to my MARA experience as the first time I was on that campus was when I also graduated last May. So it's been interesting that my educational career has not been the typical brick and mortar structure, no dorms, that sort of thing. So finding MARA was fit right into what I had done in the past. So that is so my work experience as the bio-estated my entire career has been in the private sector, my cousin was in the Navy and we had moved out here to Washington State where we live currently still in the late 1990s. And the transfer came, we moved from Florida to Washington State before I had completely finished all of the elective credits so I had a few more credits to complete. So when I moved out here I accepted a part-time temporary position with a timber management company and my position was as the assistant to the land records manager for the company. And I believe that it's what truly put records management in my brain as even a job direction. And it also gave me the desire to seek out more formal education in the industry. I've heard many of my colleagues state that most of us came into this profession by accident. I don't think anyone that I know of has actually set out and when they began their career path this is what they wanted to be. This is usually a secondary position that you're in and you become interested in and have a desire and an ability to comprehend it so then you move into those positions. So I kind of think I have to credit my third grade teacher though for laying the foundation for my organizational instincts as she would keep me after school many times to teach me structure and classification and I believe that this was probably so that all of my homework assignments would be returned in the correct order and in one piece that she could grade them. I think what it did is gave me a foundation of being able to categorize, criminalize, and to group pieces of information because since then it's a little bit OCD here at my house. So being a Navy wife, I got a lot of opportunities to exercise these records management skills that I didn't know that I had by helping fellow sailors pack when they were transferred to other boats. And it kind of became known around my husband's boat that if you wanted to make sure that all of your stuff made it in the single moving truck that you had rented then you needed to invite James and his wife and the split of labor was that James was the workhorse and I just got to stand on a truck and tell people what to do which is always fun. So I'm not suggesting that packing moving trucks is a prerequisite for becoming record managers but what I think it reinforces the ability to visualize how items can be grouped and how they relate to other items or big tetris game. Seeing these kind of connections has helped me to design classification systems, classification systems, no. And across reference items which aid users in finding related content without having to reorganize or physically move items. When I perform research now within my organization, I kind of feel like Hansel and Gretel a little bit as I follow little cross reference breadcrumbs to discover necessary files and bits of information that users need to perform their business functions. Someone has a word that they're looking for and you wrap onto that and then it leads you down the south of what a wrap called and eventually you find the needle in the haystacks that people need so that it's always fun to do that but my time with the land manager back at the timber company it started out as a simple it was a part-time temporary position to just do data entry into a land contract database that had been built by him to manage all of the real property, tree farm property contacts that they owned and managed. He was very eager I think because he was getting tired of maintaining it himself but he was very eager and supportive of me learning not only how the system was designed or what its initial purpose was for but encouraged me to further investigate how to make it better to improve on the structure so it was very nice to be able to have someone that says here's a framework and this kind of works but if you see a way to make it better then go for it and do it so when I finished the extra elective credits for my bachelor's they offered me a full-time position at the timber company and the land manager he was just absolutely wonderful. He even threw me a mini graduation seeing as the college campus was in Florida he drew me a graduation with cap down, cake, everything in the office so it was really, really nice. He was also one that encouraged me to join ARMA and to pursue the Certified Records Manager designation when at that time as I was being asked to perform under his you know his tutelage and his direction functions from a records program I began to realize that I probably needed to try to find some formal educational resource or program to supplement and support what it is I was ending up and doing for the company. And at that time the programs that I found were either focused on heavily on the archives or on a librarian focus which wasn't what I was doing in my day-to-day management with the land records program at the timber company. He eventually transferred his ARMA membership into my name once again I think because he was getting tired of participating. So it wasn't really until I started getting involved in ARMA that I had received some of that formal official training on records management principles. So at that time I also was learning another set of skills at the timber company and that was in the paralegal realm. And those are regarding the land transactions that the timber company was involved in. So once again I was performing certain corporate duties and functions and I really felt that I needed to have some kind of an educational basis on which I was performing these works. And so at the same time of finding resources for records management training I also was looking for paralegal support and training and education there too. And I've like I moved through both of those cycles early on I was very excited to find that some of the skills and knowledge that I was gaining were transferable between the records management functions and then the paralegal functions that I was performing. The biggest thing that I found was the ability as my legal training was developing. It gave me a better insight and ability to read laws and regulations which can be circular in themselves and cryptic and so that gave me a skill to be able to read those laws, regulations to come up with appropriate retention periods for records content. Yes, compliance, I mean those laws are, you almost need, you needed almost to need an interpreter sometimes. So having that other skill was then something I didn't have to push down more to our legal team which made the company happy because I got paid a lot less than the legal team did. So being able to show that value has also been, has been fun. So in 2004 the land records manager passed away and that was just, it was a huge blow but so I assumed his duties completely at that point and became also the key contact for all land transactions. So it was a loss of a mentor and then a benefit that at such a young age I guess I was now responsible for such a large and you know intricate program. So between the bachelor's degree and the now total responsibility for the records program, it gave me the necessary requirements to sit for the ICRM's certified records manager exam as there's an education and experience, you know, levels that you have to meet to be able to take that exam. So I got that pretty quickly, it was, you know, trial by fire so I had to retake part one a couple of times and it made me upset but I finally made it through it and got that designation. But it was kind of sad as the one person that had set me on and encouraged and supported that, that designation wasn't there to see me finish the journey. I can't tell you how great his support even to this, you know, this day I still can hear him in my head sometimes and I just think that having a professional mentor is a gift that not many records professionals receive and if you do have one or find one, it will greatly enrich your professional career so I really miss his training and guidance. But so at the end I spent about seven years at the Timber Company and in 2006 after spending time focusing on both records management and the paralegal functions I thought I needed to, you know, master, you know, jack of all trades, the master of none was kind of what my world at the Timber Company was becoming and I really wanted to focus. So I had put out the good vibes into the world on both of those lines of professional interest and it just so happened that a real estate investment firm here in Sumner, I live in Bonnie Lake so Sumner is just to skip down the hill for me, had just created a new corporate records management position and they were more than willing to take a chance on a very vocal young recently certified records manager so they didn't know what they were getting into and I didn't know what I was getting into so it was a perfect relationship but unlike the Timber Company that had a program that was functioning and it was basic yes but it still had, the skeleton was already there, coming into this new firm there was pretty much nothing and so it's allowed me to gain the experience of designing, building, maintaining a records program from the ground up and has been a truly learning experience and it's been, I think it's been a great relationship for the company and myself. They didn't know what they didn't need and they now have what they have and I've learned a lot through the process so. So, as the corporate records manager I am responsible for maintaining our company's entire filing structure everything, I'm slowly being tasked with electronic files as well and email management but in the beginning it was everything, physical paper, maps, disks, product binders just a varied array of information and when I took over the position the way that they had been managing their content was through the use of Word Files and they had one Word Files for every entity that they owned, managed property investments for which now is about 225 so and they were all like bullet point lists and it was just file names. There was nothing, nothing else besides the name of a file so it was course on in 2003. So, I, one of my very first duties there was to get the, that file structure out of Word Files and actually into a database so I took the experience of database design and management that I had gained at the Timber Company and I had actually created records management file database for the company and I did it that way because one I had never gone out and evaluated software before and creating databases was something that I was very comfortable with but I think it also helps the users and the company see the benefit of a formal records software, piece of software because they saw the improvement of information and access from the Word Files to the database that I had built and were happy with that enough to give me the, the budget and the ability to go out and find a, you know, a formal out-of-the-box kind of records management product so after many months of searching and doing demos and having user testing forums which, once again, I learned a lot of things and getting user input is very important. I have learned over the years that now you need to be very specific in what you want your users to report back on otherwise there's just this flood of, I don't like it but I don't know why, don't ask me, unusable feedback so it has been a, that was an interesting process as well as learning how to communicate what an end user would be seeing now and how to get them to see that from a demo when I myself hadn't seen it work either but we decided on a program and we've had this program up and running since 2007 and it's called FileTrail and it's a software for physical files and it was totally configurable to meet our needs because as I said we have several hundreds and I think we're now at 225 plus or minus active entities that we manage information for and the nature of our business is such that at the end of the day there's about 200 different record series of information that can be created because we just have that many different lines of business within our organization. So being able to configure a system to meet that flexibility was very important. At this position I'm also responsible for training, for continuing education, for database troubleshooting, doing some, a lot of the, when new users are brought on the RIT department adds them to the active directory and company networks but then once they get into FileTrail, I'm the one that's in the back end managing the permissions and the access and who can see what went in and how. So that has also been fun learning too. So being a department of one for this large company, large small company has allowed me the opportunity to gain lots of experience, a lot of hands-on experience managing all facets of a records management program. One of the interesting ones that I inherited when I started was their, the company's archives and what they had and still, what we still have is just an inactive storage protocol for management of information that no longer has any day-to-day needs or functions but that we need to maintain for legal or fiscal or even some of them is just a company historical thing but it's not an archive. I've tried over the years to get people to stop calling it the archives but I've kind of given up that ghost in favor of them understanding other records management functions better. So picking my battles but when I started, there was about 1,100 boxes and they were in on, they were on, you know, records under shelving in a warehouse that was attached to our main office location and originally all of the boxes were organized alphabetically by the name of the entity that owns them. Going back, we have 225 plus entities. So everything was in alphabetic order which made it easy early on and they, A, were a smaller company and didn't have as many entities and weren't creating as many records to maintain and having them alphabetically actually was helpful for the company to be able to access the information because there doesn't need, there didn't need to be any other system or key or reference point in order for individuals to locate what they were looking for. Users would simply just go to the area in the space in the warehouse where that entity's boxes were located and they would read a few minutes on the box labels to find their box. However, on the maintenance side as the company grew and more content was being created was just very, very tedious for me to have to maintain. Since all of the boxes were in an alphabetical order, whenever something new was added, it required the entire volume of records or boxes to sometimes be completely shifted and moved to, in order to keep all of the boxes together. And I very quickly grew tired of moving boxes. So with the help of some Armour International resources and speaking with vendor representatives, I developed what I call at this, the office is an addressing system which allowed boxes to be added or shelved in any open space within the warehouse and without regard to does this fit alphabetically and the way I would, you know, explain it to people that everyone, you know, your house has an address, this box now has an address so that you can find it later. The upside was that I didn't have to move a lot of boxes all the time, but the downside was that users now had, you have that intermediary reference resource to be able to access their information no longer could they just go to an alphabetic area and find their boxes. They now had to look to the list and then find the address. And it took a while for some of the longer term employees of the company to get used to the new system, but eventually users actually came to like the process better. Since the reference system that was created through FileTrail, it gave the user more information about the box itself. So now they didn't have to go and pull and read 10, 12 different box labels. They could search the system and find the box that most closely fit what they were looking for and that reduced, you know, their time to access that information. So eventually they, a lot of them liked it. I mean people still complain with that, you know, that could be what it is. But as our company continued to grow, we needed that warehouse space for other business functions. And so we had relocated the record center, what I had renamed from the archives to the record center and moved it to another owned off-site warehouse location. I was still the primary person of managing that system. I still was in charge of having to go and help people pull files and pull boxes and then the, you know, the annual shelving of information. So it was quickly becoming a lot of my, much of my workload managing the record center. So I had started to suggest that there are better ways to do this, like hiring a third party vendor to do this management for us. And it wasn't until Thanksgiving 2010 that I actually got some meat behind my suggestion. And that was because our, the space that was being used was a mixed use building. So it had a living space above the warehouse. And that Thanksgiving, the water pipes of the household unit above froze and burst. And so I, when I was called to come to the record center, I walked in and saw an indoor swimming pool around my paper and boxes. So I was standing in two inches of water and listening to the sound of rain as the ceiling, you know, leaked water all over the record center. So the good thing was is that it was snowing then too. So the cold water actually helped in our favor as it helped to mitigate any additional, like damage from mold or deterioration. But there was a lot of wet, wet boxes. So I called them the, the other, I called them some professionals. They were from Monter's. I think they're now called Polygon. And they are document restoration professionals. And I think after about 10 hours of working with six crewmen from my company and two from Monter's, about a third of the boxes were loaded to be taken to Chicago for restoration. Another third were loaded into a rented U-Haul truck and taken to another dry storage location. And then the last third were covered with tarps inside the damaged record center. So the BC plan, Lisa, that was, that was pretty much it. I just called Monter's. This goes back to being new in the position. That wasn't even one of the, the things that had entered my thinking. I didn't like the fact that there was a living unit above it. I knew that that cost could be something, but I never put any official thing into plan. So thankfully after that they were more than happy to sign off on the transfer of all those boxes to a third, you know, an offsite vendor because that, the total cost of that incident for us was about over $75,000 at the end when everything was said and done and 75% of that was in restoring the boxes that were sent away. So I've had a lot of on-the-job stuff. So more recent and drier work project being brought in on is the development of our company's SharePoint team site. And I'm trying to tap into my knowledge of the organizational system for our physical files to develop how the content on our SharePoint sites will be managed and maintained and created, that sort of thing. Our physical files are pretty much, I would say I'm pretty confident that our physical file system could withstand any kind of legal, regulatory, industry litigation audit and you'd be able to find what you needed, when you needed it and it'd be current, accurate information. And that has a lot to do with that. The makers of the files and the user of the files are typically close together. So if we have an open file plan system, that means that any employee that needs access to the information doesn't have to request access, everyone just knows where things are stored. But the nature of how our offices have been set up, pretty much those who are responsible for the content are usually the only ones that really have easy access to the information. So just by location, our physical files are pretty accurate and reliable. Unfortunately, you know, electronic files, they don't work the same way unless you restrict access to file folders or parts of your shared work environment. And so the users are not as confident that an electronic version of a file is as reliable as being able to go and pick up that physical one, just by the nature that more people can access the electronic version. So that's been kind of a challenge in getting people to stop hoarding their own electronic versions of information and become more comfortable with collaboration and understanding the track changes and that's still to be able to pull it up and know that what you're seeing is an accurate and correct version. So trying to get people comfortable and create those systems and policies to not let just that there's actually a purpose for changing electronic files. Some people understand that this is, you know, an accurate version. So financial audits still require everything in hard copy. Yes, anyway, this is in the case of not, we're not replacing our hard files. We are just trying to reduce the amount of duplication that happens with the electronic versions of our hard copy files so that we have a lot more control over where information, that we know that when we say, yeah, we've searched all of our hard drives and this is the only versions we have, I can be confident and say that. So right now, I don't have that confidence that I could tell you that, yes, I've searched all my file, you know, our company and these are the only electronic versions of something. So that's what my focus is right now is not a replacement of our physical files but just a more streamlined and reliable use of those files. So that makes any sense. Any other questions on that? Oh, integrity, yes, maintain the integrity because the integrity of the physical files is sound. I'm bragging a little bit but I think it's really good but I don't think the integrity of our electronic files is there yet. So that's what we're hoping we can improve upon with the SharePoint development. So any other questions? Then I'm going to move on to my Mara's very first question there. So it was around 2009 and I began to seek out some more educational opportunities. I had spent, at that point, it was about eight, nine years. You know, in the profession but still never having a regal records management. Oh, I'm sorry, Kate, you had a question? Courage, if you had experience with SharePoint prior to current job, no, no, it's been interesting. The whole SharePoint conversion, it started off as being an IT project and once the multiple and variously detailed switches in the back end were all initiated, then it was time to go out and say what do you want the SharePoint site to do? And it was at that point that I was brought in because then it had more of a content usage focus and not a permission, yes, no, turning something on, having the right software hardware that the IT team, that's their knowledge. And so it's been interesting because I've had to learn how SharePoint calls things. So once again, we're learning a new vocabulary and trying to bring those terms into what employees would be able to relate to easier but still trying to say, okay, this is a new verbiage that's not completely ignore it and not try to learn it but still trying to make it understandable for across the site. I think SharePoint can do a lot of things. It seems to do some of it out of the box pretty easily once you learn what things are called and what their main purpose is for. But it's just so, it's such a blank canvas that it's been difficult going to our departments and saying, well, what do you want on a shared space when they've never had any kind of a collaborative software or any kind of an interface like this before and saying, well, what do you want? Their next question to us is, well, what do you have? So, and then we go back, we can have whatever you want but what do you have? And so, it's just this circular question of it can do a lot of stuff but it's not, there isn't a lot of examples because it really can do different things for different people. So, I've tried to, as I'm learning more about the configurability of SharePoint, I've been trying to say to individuals is what kind of usage do you want? And then from there, building them a temporary or a basic site structure so that they can see what it would look like. And then going from there and making changes and modifications as users start actually using the system because we all know that what people want and what they do are two different things sometimes. So, but at least we'll get it started. So, the cultural shift occurred, yes, and that was something I didn't find out until a couple of years into the position that it wasn't, I guess, the cultural shift wasn't necessarily that they all were trying to embrace it. It was more of from a top management disposition will be created and you will work with her and you will like her and that's it. So, unfortunately, I came in as a very eager person to learn and coming in with the expectation that everyone was just thrilled to have me in their workspace and just could not wait for the, you know, the wonderful things and butterflies that I could bring them and that wasn't really the case. A lot of people were very suspicious of me, I found out later, that they thought maybe I was coming in to reduce staffing because a lot of the questions that I was asking is what do you do, how do you do it, who do you work with. And because I was looking at from business process standpoint, so I could figure out how to build a system, who talks to who and why. And that wasn't, they were looking at it from a completely different direction. So, unfortunately, that was just something that age, I just didn't have that experience to be able to know that ahead of time. So, yes, some questions do make people defensive is why do you want to know how I do it? I do it very well, thank you. So, but it's been a learning experience and I've grown a lot that way as well. I'm still enthusiastic about it, but people don't cringe when I walk into a room now. So, that's always nice, but it took about four years to get there, so anyhow. So, my large experience, it was in 2009, I was trying to find some more actual educational programs and everything that I was finding just didn't seem to fit and I'm not sure if I ran into Pat at an Army International Conference or I had seen the website first. But either way, when I began to investigate it and I was just very, it was probably simultaneously, something like that, but it was just, it was like light from heaven or something and it just was a nice perspective because at that time, I had also considered making the switch from records management to archives because I kind of like history and I like the, you know, the investigation and preservation of information and just artifacts and stuff like that. So, finding the MARA program that provided a dual focus was just, it just was exactly what I was looking for and I believe that this is the program gave a very good balance between the two facets of information management. I also really enjoy being part of the second cohort to participate in the program as it possibly, you know, my input could change, you know, an educational program that would influence generations to come. So, that was also very, a little bonus caveat too. The confidence to take on the new projects that I am at work has come from my interactions with MARA being in and having been in the industry for many years before getting formal education. Coming in tomorrow, I was really kind of hoping that I was doing stuff right and so the program really gave me a lot of validation of what I had thought I knew. It was, it was right and it was lovely to see that I had learned something in the trenches. So, that was just, it was just very, very, very, very fulfilling being part of the MARA program. I loved the online learning environment. It became very, very key as shortly after being accepted and started the program, I had a pretty major life changing event and I had to physically go to a campus or meet someone else's school timeline having to travel somewhere. I would have had to resign from the program because I just, it just was not going to be possible that time. So, I really enjoyed my internship. I was able to work with Cisco Systems in San Jose. At first, I was hesitant. I had never done a internship before and thought it was for people who didn't have any or little job experience which wasn't my case. So, going into it, I was kind of, I'm not sure what this is like, but it really gave me the ability to see someone else's records program from the inside that I was able to take and put pieces and upgrade my company's month program. So, and then, of course, you know, graduation, I love this. This is a cohort, fellow cohort of mine. She posted these on her Facebook page and so I just had to include those as well for all of those of you who are starting or not quite done yet. You too can have one of these someday. So, I look like I'm running out of time. I'm going to quickly go through just the professional development. I've been doing a lot in studying member of Arma Nation since about 2000 and it was a key to being able to interact with other professionals as sometimes training can be a bit technical and theoretical. The ability to then discuss those concepts with people who are actually trying to implement them was something you couldn't just, you just really can't get in most, you know, sessions or not in our training or in our educational session. So, that involvement has been invaluable to me. I have continued my involvement at the local level. I've been held many chapter positions from treasurer to president and back to treasurer and I'm currently the chairman of the board and programs chair. I see Susan's logged in and she's on, she's our webmaster for mistress for our chapter. So, we're just, you just got to be involved. That's where you make your, you know, your connections. So, but it also gave me the presentation, presentation skills and gave me the opportunity to present and share my knowledge at regional and local levels. I was able to be part of the project lead for an international, our international guideline about evaluating and mitigating records and information management risks and I was able to work with a individual who I had read previous articles and books from and was able to co-author a chapter in a international textbook with her. So, I wouldn't have been able to do that had I not had the international contact. So, it's given me the ability to develop presentation and leadership skills but being a department one, you don't get the opportunity to help manage a lot of people. Of course, it's, you know, just the small groups that you get to interact with when managing their systems but on the whole it's just, it's just me. So, I have enjoyed my time also with ARMA. So, that's, that's all, that's about it. That's my life so far. Thank you everyone for listening and for purchase, you know, allowing me to present this. If you haven't had a question, be happy to take them now and if you're listening to the recording, I have put my contact information here and you feel free to email me or give me a call if you have any further questions. So, thank you for joining us tonight. Thank you Amber, that was terrific.


Good morning and welcome to the 13th meeting in 2022 of the local government housing and planning committee. We have received apologies from Mark Griffin. I would ask all members to ensure their mobile phones are on silent and that all other notifications are turned off during the meeting. The first item on our agenda today is to decide whether we take item 3 in private. Are we all agreed? We're all agreed. The next item on our agenda for today is to consider two negative instruments and I will invite any comments from members on them in turn. If there is no requirement for the committee to make any recommendations on negative instruments, first we will consider the council tax exemption, Dwellings Scotland, amendment order 2022. Do members wish to make any comments on the instrument? No need to make comments, so now we will turn to consideration of council tax reduction and council tax discounts, miscellaneous amendment, Scotland regulations 2022. Do members wish to make any comments on this instrument? No, I wish to make comments. Does the committee agree that we do not wish to make any recommendations in relation to either instrument? We are all agreed. As we are agreed at the start of the meeting to take the next item in private, I now close the public part of the meeting.


Okay, so everyone can hear me okay online students all right good okay let's get into last class we we completed chapter one we looked at the different what is what is the covenant the five important covenants the covenant with Noah the covenant with Abraham covenant with Moses and Israel covenant with David and the new covenant the covenant as new creation okay chapter 2 is something that is very common and most of us know about this right that is God's covenant names now as a as God said he's the covenant maker he also has covenant names right now if you look at the Old Testament names were very important yes God told Abraham you change your name from a Bram to Abraham Sarai to Sarah he said Jacob from now on you'll be called Israel right and in the old covenant names were very important it basically described who the person is or what they're going to do in the future right now God has a set of covenant names right now we may think okay why does God have it is calling God no why do you want covenant names see here's the thing when God says he does something he does it because of his covenant and you and I can use his covenant names and what those you know what they are as you know as believers we can use them in our life right so let's look at some of God's covenant names before that Exodus chapter 6 verse 3 to 5 I appeared to Abraham to Isaac and a Jacob as God Almighty that is El Shaddai but by my name Lord I was not known to them I've also established my covenant with them I give them to the land of Kenna the land of their pilgrimage in which they were strangers verse 5 and I also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage and I have remembered my covenant now route all through time from the old covenant God revealed himself through his covenant names or with his covenant names right now each of these covenant names bear titles each of these covenant names is who he is and what he's able to do right so it's not for sure and when God says I am Jehovah Jairah that's who he is and that's who and that's what he does when God says I am Jehovah Rafa that's who he is and that's what he does even right so you and I as God's people we can expect when we are part of a covenant relationship with him we can expect all of his covenant titles or his covenant names to fall upon our lives to be upon us right because you're part of a covenant all the blessings flows with that right let's look at the covenant names number one Jehovah Elohim the eternal creator you know normally we sing songs of all these names right last you know we have these Hindi songs and English songs which talk about who God is Jehovah Elohim he's the eternal creator so how can I apply it in my life so I'm praying thank God right now I don't see an opportunity coming my way but you're a God who creates opportunities you are the Jehovah Elohim you're the creator or you're praying for somebody and you know this person has got some problem with his you know organs in his body saying God you are Jehovah Elohim you can create new organs that's who you are you understand why these names are important you're declaring who God is and what he can do to Adonai Jehovah the Lord our sovereign or Master Lord what is the meaning of sovereign everyone knows the meaning of sovereign sovereign means all-knowing okay supreme that's the word I was looking for supreme right that means there's nothing that he doesn't know he's he's sovereign over everything you sing the song Lord you are sovereign over us do we know what is going to happen next week to us we know what is going to happen next week we don't know but the Bible says in Psalms 139 he knit us together in our mother's womb even before a day came to us he has written all the days of our life why because he is sovereign he knows everything even before a day comes he knows what's going to happen next week he knows what's going to happen next month next year 2025 2035 2045 he knows it why because he's sovereign and when we say he's sovereign sometimes in our life we will go through ups and downs right everything's going well suddenly there's a problem that's when we can declare this God I don't understand what what I what steps should I take next I don't understand why this problem has come but you are sovereign over my life so I surrender myself to you you see how you can apply it in our lives what are you doing all you're doing is using a title of who God is applying it into your life three Jehovah Jairah the Lord will see and provide we all this is something common right we always say God will provide my pockets are empty Jehovah Jairah my God will provide right and this is a common one that we always use why do we say that because we know God will provide that's who he is it will not change but how he provides when he would provide that is his way the problem with us as believers is God when tomorrow next week will I receive next week can you give me a due date no God does not work in due date all he's saying is I am the Lord I will see that I will provide I am Jehovah Jairah you wait for the way I will provide so you and I as believers we pray they say God so for example you want to start your own ministry or some of you here going to become pastors right now to become pastor you you have to do certain things right you may need finances you may need people you may need resources to begin with so you say God I have nothing with me but I know this is what you've called me to do Jehovah you are my provider Jehovah Jairah that's what you're saying God I'm not depending on my ability but I am standing on what you said your name that's who you are that's your character you are Jehovah Jairah so you will provide but and I'm sure God has done this in each of our lives right sometimes it's noticeable sometimes it's not noticeable and then later we know who God only did this I didn't realize he is the Jehovah Jairah Jehovah Nessie the Lord our banner or you can say the Lord is our victory banner right when we say these words Jehovah Nessie we're saying God you are my victory banner like wherever I go you will cause me to be victorious but then some of us may say but where whatever I'm doing is a failure nobody is you know recognizing my skills and nobody's you know encouraging me I'm just doing everything on my own don't worry look at this says God is our Jehovah Nessie he will bring us to victory he will bring us to be he will cause us to be triumphant again the problem with us is we want victory immediately right but you know sometimes God will not give victory very easily he knows when to give the victory but he'll make us learn the hard way you'll make us go through a Caesar so allow God to of course we pray we say God this is who you are we stand on it but if it doesn't happen we don't say oh God what is this no continue to have faith okay God I know that you're there with me I don't see the victory but one day I will see it standing on who he is okay next Jehovah Rafa the Lord our healer now when you go to your settle group leaders or your pastors for prayer they say oh pastor I've got you know headache normally what he'll pray headache be gone in Jesus name because you are Jehovah Rafa why God is our healer right it doesn't matter how big the sickness is if it's a cold still God is our healer right now if you go over play in the rain and say I got cold God you are my healer now don't play in the rain God will say you wait three days the cold will go on its own you understand what I'm trying to say right now there are times we go through sicknesses illnesses even you know sickness in the mind emotional distress right God is our healer and so we are not standing on our own works we're standing on who God is now it took a long time for me to understand this you know I remember at an early age I used to go to these you know evangelist in meetings they would call me so I'd go to different parts of India and I would really pray right that's very young maybe 23 or 24 years old pray and say God you know these people are coming you should do something you should do some miracles here and you know the meetings would happen and people will come forward for prayer nobody will get healed I think myself I used to feel very bad as you say God am I wrong what is happening why people are not getting healed and sometimes I felt like okay maybe I'm not right but over time I realized that I don't have to put pressure on myself am I the healer am I the one who is going to bring healing to this person no all I'm doing is I'm standing on God I'm saying God you are the healer I don't have to do anything I'm putting my faith in you and you are the Jehovah Rafa so you bring the healing there was a switch you know that light bulb moment switch I my responsibility as God's child is to pray and faith God it is your responsibility to heal because you are the healer now you may heal now you may heal after one year you may heal after ten years that's up to you but I've done my part so I began a minister in freedom that is why I like to you know always encourage young folks don't worry don't worry about you how many certificates you have how many subjects you know no when you're praying for people for healing it is not you it is God God is saying I'm the Jehovah Rafa so you're standing on God's name and so feel free to minister to people right feel free to pray for healing now there will be times healing happens praise God but what if healing doesn't happen say hey continue trust God this is what God said he is so he will do it for you who want don't sit and ponder about it oh prayed no healing move on God will do it in his way right next Jehovah Shalom the Lord is our peace we go a little quickly Jehovah Rohi the Lord are shepherd now I want to talk about this what do you think about a shepherd I really when I say when you say when you look at a shepherd what are some of the attributes that come to your mind as a shepherd sorry protective using something okay what else okay think of shepherd and look at sheep everywhere what will the shepherd do number one protective okay man takes it to good place cares for the sheep right he's willing to give his life for the sheep right and and he's responsible to make sure that everything happens right he guides the sheep right now all of that the Lord is our shepherd so in the summer says no the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want he makes me lie down in green pastures now when you say green pastures for a sheep it's like for us you know enjoying the best meal imagine green everywhere full of grass and sheep is that they will keep eating they will eat eat they'll become tired and they will rest over there itself so Jesus God is saying the Lord is my chef David is saying the Lord is my shepherd I shall not be in want he will make me to lie down in green pastures but a shepherd has a shepherd stuff how many of you have seen that shepherd stuff right that stick with the now do you know that I think I've yeah some of them I've said here he guides us he leads us he's our provider yeah so this shepherd stuff right it is used to protect but it is your also used to bring connection your rod and your stuff they comfort me right now as a shepherd if God is our shepherd there are times he will correct us he will continue to correct us there's a time they will he may use the rod and the rod is painful but it's for our good you understand if the sheep is going on going the other side towards the main road he will go call it you say don't go there pull it you know say no that's not the right place to you come back come back then what will you do he'll turn that stuff and give one whack oh the sheep it'll pay in for the sheep but he'll know I should not go there why is the shepherd doing that because he cares for the sheep the same way God is our shepherd there will be times you know what he may bring the rod of correction to us but it's for our good yes or no right that's who he is right he is our Jehovah sitkin the Lord our righteousness he is Jehovah Shama the Lord who is present he is Jehovah Sabot which is the Lord of hosts Jehovah Mechadisham which is the Lord our sanctifier you know what is sanctify sanctify means to set apart to be made holy who makes us holy God makes us holy people the enemy the devil make us feel unholy you may say you've done these many sins you are unholy you better there's no use of you praying there's no use of you reading the word there's no use for you to you know study God's word there's no use that's the devil's work but you say hey Jehovah Mechadisham the Lord is my sanctifier have I made mistakes yes have I sinned yes but the Lord will sanctify me he will make me clean he will make me holy right Jehovah Elion the Lord Most High the Lord Jehovah Hussainu which is the Lord our maker Jehovah Elohimu which is the Lord our God Jehovah Eloheka which is the Lord thy God Jehovah Elohi which is the Lord my God so the point of all of this is that you and I as believers and use this covenant names in our life it is not meant to make a frame and only keep on the wall frames are good but it is meant to declare it over your life so make it a habit right as believers make it a habit wherever you are right you wake up in the morning say you you know you're just tired you're very good you are my strength you say God Jehovah Roy you are with me and sometimes we may feel you know we may feel far away from God say God I know you are with me you are next to me you are Jehovah Shama the God who's present and you may get up with full of body pain God I know you are my Jehovah Rafa my healer use them in your life make it meaningful amen right so let's go to chapter 3 understanding blood covenant are you sure we didn't do this we haven't done this okay okay understanding the blood covenant okay in the book of Exodus and then go on to Leviticus we see there were many offerings involved right and one very important covenant or an offering was the blood covenant so what is this blood covenant though it is the word the blood covenant refers to agreement or involvement of two or three parties by shedding of blood that's a blood covenant right now let me give you the example Abraham God sorry Adam and Eve sinned what happened after that they knew that they were naked God asked them how do you know you're naked why because the eyes are open now they knew they covered themselves in leaves what did God do he killed an animal and they've covered themselves in a animal skin first blood covenant a blood covenant is when two or three parties make a covenant by shedding of blood the shedding of blood can you give me the perfect example of a blood covenant very simple Jesus dying on the cross yes perfect perfect example of a blood covenant Jesus did not say okay your sins are washed away you believe in me you just believe in me your sins are washed away you have you're a new person no Jesus I'm gonna make it a covenant and not just a regular covenant I'm gonna make it a blood covenant that's going to be shedding of blood right okay so let's look at some of it and then we can learn more from examples right it's an agreement of shedding of blood when you and I enter a blood covenant with someone it is until death and a blood covenant between two people is the strongest born on earth out of all the covenants the blood covenant is the strongest it's like you're saying hey I shed my blood remember we we cut ourselves we put blood example right we put blood now I'm not talking about this you know this things that happen between youth no no no this is I'm talking about the covenant of God the blood that was the blood in the old covenant what it is signify and then also in the new covenant right it is your life it signified your love and your protection until death nobody could break a blood covenant just like that right because when the covenant is made it was binding forever I mean look at a few examples as well the blood's covenant ceremony was to announce the terms or words of the covenant and then it was ratified or sealed with blood it comes into effect the moment the covenant is backed up with your life and any violation of this covenant will cost life that means when the covenant is made if I choose to go away from this covenant my life is on the line I'm not allowed to do that over time what gave the people of Israel a series of covenants that is the Abrahamic covenant the Messiah covenant the Davidic covenant and the Messiah covenant now let's go through these covenants and see what we can learn from them okay the blood covenant with Abraham Genesis chapter 12 1 to 3 can maybe one of us read that Genesis 12 1 to 3 go ahead God told Abraham leave your country your family and your father's home for a land that I will show you I'll make you a great nation and bless you I'll make you famous you'll be a blessing I'll bless those who bless you those who curse you I'll curse all the families of the earth will be blessed through you okay let's also read Genesis 17 7 through 11 talking about the circumcision Genesis 17 7 through 11 Genesis chapter 17 verse 7 and I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and your descendants after you was 8 also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are stranger all the land of Kenan as an everlasting position and I will be their God yes verse 9 and God said to Abraham as for you you shall keep my covenant you and your descendants after you throughout their generations verse 10 this is my covenant with the you shall keep between me and you and your descendants after you every male child among you shall be circumcised was 11 and you shall be circumcised in the flash of your foreskin and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you okay look at what God does God tells Abraham okay these are the things I'm going to do Genesis 17 I'm gonna bless you I'm going to make you the father of many nations I'm going to make you a great person now what is the sign of this covenant circumcision so every male child why male because they're going to take on the generation right one generation next generation comes to the male right so every male child must be circumcised right and so blood was shed and God is reminding Abraham and he saying this is a blood covenant that I'm making with you the covenant required Abraham to walk in obedience and walk in faith right it was it was shedding of blood God tells Abraham you do it and then every male child from generation to generation will get circumcised and when the day they're getting circumcised that moment you're getting circumcised remember that this is a covenant that I have made it's a blood covenant I've established it so I will fulfill it and I'm fulfilling it so even now if you look at the Jews they have they follow the circumcision it's very important to them why it's God told Abraham God told Abraham to do it it's a blood covenant now you know now people may not even know why they're doing it you know sometimes you come to a time generation where people do things because everyone are doing it blood covenant with Abraham God told Abraham because of you because of your faith because of what you are going to be the generations later I'm going to seal it with blood I promised you Abraham that when you look up to the skies you see the stars up there many will be your generation I'm going to seal it with blood so I am not going to break the covenant Abraham was faithful that's why we see the generation going on and on and on and on right there were blessings God gave the promise and he also signed it off signed off on the promise as a guarantee there were blessings promised to Abraham and to all his descendants as part of the Abrahamic covenant you think of this imagine one you know Abraham Isaac Jacob Joseph and imagine the generation kept going and there's one one group of people who you know they did evil in the eyes of God they didn't want to do anything but because of God's covenant with Abraham if you three read through the Old Testament every now and then you'll see I made a covenant with your forefathers a forefather Abraham so I'm not going to destroy you look at Chronicles first Chronicles second Chronicles the people were going against God they they sinned they did evil in the eyes of God every now and then you'll see that as I promised your the your forefather as I promised him as I made a covenant with him I'm not going to wipe you off I'm not going to destroy you you understand so the old when we look at it there was only one reason I would say that why God didn't destroy the people of Israel because he made a blood covenant with Abraham he said no I can't do this I will not destroy them because I promised Abraham it's a blood covenant are they doing wrong are they doing evil in the eyes of God yes but because of Abraham now you are part of the covenant so I'm not going to destroy you right the ultimate purpose of God's covenant with us is relationship it was not just so that we can receive all the benefits it was relationship the ultimate purpose and just as Abraham he was called a friend of God you know nowadays when people get circumcised it's not about relationship it's just you know it's just a task to do okay I'm a Jew I have to get circumcised it doesn't mean anything right and even later on when you look at in the scriptures when the Jews were you know the Israelites they were living in sin what were they doing they were going doing all the sacrifices following all the laws the rules and regulations but they were also sinning there was no relationship it was only oh what do you call that it was just something to get done a task to fulfill right but here it says the ultimate purpose of God's blood covenant was relationship second one Abraham believed God the shedding of blood made a covenant with God possible God established his covenant with Abraham with the blood look at this I'll read this Genesis 15 1 through 6 after these things after what things after God telling him everything the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision saying do not be afraid of Abraham I am your shield your exceedingly great reward but Abraham said Lord God what will you give me seeing I go childless and the air of my house is a laser of the masses and Abraham said look you have given me no offsprings indeed one born in my house is my air and behold the word of the Lord came to him saying this one shall not be your air but one who will come from your own body shall be your air then he brought him outside and said look now towards the heavens and count the stars if you're able to number them and he said to him so shall be your descendants and he believed in the Lord and he accounted it to him for righteousness look at let's look at the next one how did God ratify that means how did he establish this covenant with with Abraham now in Genesis 15 1 and 6 he's telling Abraham Genesis 15 7 to 21 then he said to him I am the Lord who brought you out of or that or the child of the Chaldeans to give you this land to inherit it and he said Lord God shall I know that how shall I know that I will inherit it he said to him look at this just picture this right God is told Abraham this is what will be you will be then Abraham is saying how do I know that you're going to give me a big land my own place with my own with you know like numbers of the stars in the sky I'm going to have a generation how do I know it I know you're God you're telling me how do I know it here's what God's reply is and he said verse 9 bring me a three-year-old heifer a three-year-old female goat a three-year-old ram a turtle dove and a young pigeon so God is saying all this right bring all these animals then he brought all of these to him and cut them into two down in the middle and placed each piece opposite to each other but he did not cut the birds in two and when the vultures came down on the carcasses Abraham drew that drove them away now when the Sun was going down a deep sleep fell upon Abraham and behold horror and great darkness fell upon him then he said to Abraham know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs and will serve them and they will be afflicted for 400 years and also the nation whom they serve I will judge after that they shall come out with great possessions now as for you you shall go to your father's in peace and you shall be buried at your old age but in the fourth generation they shall return here for the inequity of the Amorites is not it complete verse 17 and it came to pass when the Sun went down it was dark that behold there appeared a smoking oven and a burning post that passed between those two pieces on the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying to your descendants I've given this land from the river to the great river the river Euphrates then he goes on to explain who are the people who will live there now I want you to picture this okay everyone think about this in your mind see this happening as I'm saying it Abraham God is told Abraham right you will be the father of many nations now Abraham say how do I know okay God says go bring a three-year-old hypha a three-year-old female goat what what are the other things a three-year-old ram a turtle dove and some young pigeons so Abraham goes he brings them God tells him cut it into half right except for the birds cut it into half now when you cut an animal what happens blood is shed okay so Abraham did it cut it and he kept it in opposite directions except for the birds the birds are there Abraham doesn't know what to do he's just sitting there he falls into a deep sleep and then God speaks to him and says now I'm going to establish my covenant what happens God himself walks in between and I say God himself his presence his power his glory walks in between the burnt the blood the offering that was made and he says now the covenant which I told you is established I've established it I have walked through this blood and now I've established a blood covenant with you he also goes on to say listen Abraham your descendants will go to a foreign land for 400 years does that happen who goes Israelites are in Egypt for 400 years but they will come out and they will get back into their the land that I promised and so what happens here God himself passed between those two offerings blood covenant established do you think that would have increased Abraham's faith yes every time he's maybe sleeping he's saying when will I have a son no no no no I remember I cut that animal I put it there and I remember God walking through that and he made a blood covenant with me whether I'm 100 years old whether I'm 150 years old God made the covenant so I have to believe it right a blood covenant first one secondly when when he makes a covenant he changes our names he changes he gives us a new identity he gives us a new nature Abraham's name was changed he was an old man walking around called Abraham but now suddenly one morning God is telling the night God has told him you'll be a father of many nations change your name from Abraham to Abraham now he's Abraham father of many nations now his identity is changed right it's like in the national when we talk about it Bible call a student now suddenly after you graduate from here pastor identity is changed the thinking changes yes or no will you keep worrying about whether the tea is come or not you're not worried about all of that because your identity is changed right you your your thinking changes now you're a pastor but ten days back only you graduated that's okay your thinking changes new identity new nature then God says circumcision is the sign or the seal of the covenant use this before right if there's a if I give you a paper and I put the seal of the church or the seal of an organization it is valid but if I write and I say my name is Paul I am you know I'm the teacher and I just give it that person will look at the paper and return it back to you say go give it back to them it's moment the seal is dead at value for Abraham circumcision was the seal of the covenant and it followed on all through the Old Testament until the time of Jesus that the seal the covenant was there now what happened after the cross we don't need that anymore we'll talk about that later right because God made a better covenant with Abraham so what is Abraham in heaven saying but what about my covenant no God is saying I've got I've made a better one Abraham you don't worry who I'm sending my own son to die on the cross a blood covenant for everyone right okay next one Abraham was a friend of God God revealed reveals to Abraham what he was planning to do this is called fellowship and friendship the ultimate purpose of relationship now God didn't this tell Abraham I'm going to do this but he also gave some details of how he's going to do it but he tells Abraham Abraham your next couple of generations ahead 400 years they will not be in the land that I promised you it's like two friends talking he gives him details and Abraham was able to have that relationship because he was in a blood covenant you and I are in a blood covenant with Jesus I don't we sing that song no I'm a friend of God there are many songs talking about being friends with Jesus what a friend we have in Jesus why how can we call him friend because we are in covenant with him and a friend and as a friend we can speak to him and he will speak to us right look at here are look at a few examples of intercession based on the blood covenant relationship with God Abraham's test Genesis chapter 22 God tests Abraham now God is blessed Abraham with Isaac is it Isaac is growing up as a nice smart young boy he's probably in the steens God tells Abraham okay Abraham do one thing you take Isaac take him up that mountain and sacrifice him one more blood covenant second blood go Abraham was thinking why would I want to do that you said you'll bless me you said you made a blood covenant with me you gave me a boy he's grown up also and why would you want to ask him again but Abraham was faithful he said God is my friend and as my friend as a as I'm in relationship with him I know that he will only want good for me I can only imagine Abraham taking Isaac and going it's easy to preach on this when you're not married the moment you're married and you have a son you'll not even pick up this topic it is true I've preached on this Abraham and Isaac have preached my heart out after I had a son I try not to preach it's not easy it's not at all easy you think Abraham you think it's good looking at a young boy God is saying goes to sacrifice him think it's easy your own son I waited 25 years for this I didn't wait any years I waited nine months 25 years you're telling sacrifice but God Abraham knew that I'm in relationship with God I'm in a covenant he will not break my covenant even if he asked me to sacrifice Isaac he'll give me another son because he's made a covenant with me you understand that picture that Abraham had that's why Paul is writing in the book of Romans and he says just as Abraham believed God he's a father of faith even if Isaac goes he'll give me another Isaac if that Isaac goes he'll give me another Isaac he tells me to sacrifice three Isaacs I'll do it because I know that he will fulfill it that was the fate that Abraham walked in is it easy very very difficult as common as rule as you and I are in covenant relationship with Jesus we are to walk in that measure of faith but God is patient with us yes and he's helping us to learn and grow okay then what does he say by myself oh sorry a deeper revelation of God so Genesis 22 now Abraham is taking Isaac he goes up the mountain he's go ties him up he's going to kill him then Abraham lifted his eyes and look and there behind him was a ram caught in the ticket by its horn so Abraham went took the ram offered it as a burnt offering to his son and Abraham called that called the name of the place the Lord will provide Jehovah Tyra can you picture Abraham he's tied up Isaac he's ready to you know kill Isaac God says wait there's a ram can you picture how Abraham will be feeling when he's untying Isaac oh my son you're the covenant you see I told you God who God is you think God changes now he doesn't there's the offering you're not gonna go you're a God made a blood covenant with me there's the ram get the ram and come got the ram sacrifices and Abraham named it the Lord will provide you know a ram will not go so high up a mountain that's not what Rams are for Rams are not designed to go so high they're designed to be on land maybe a little height that's it Abraham went up the mountain God told this ram okay that raise your last day go up the mountain God made the ram go up was it natural it was not natural but God said I will provide right a deeper revelation of who God is imagine Abraham coming down that mountain I said I told you you know that's what he is he is a God who keeps his covenant he will not change and imagine his faith how much stronger it would have become but had a deeper revelation of who God is like then he says by myself I have sworn God backs up his covenant with himself Hebrews 6 13 and 15 for when God made a promise to Abraham because he could swear by no one greater he swore by himself surely blessings I will bless you and multiply and I will multiply multiplying I will multiply you and so after he had patiently endured he obtained the promise God swore by himself because there is no one greater than he couldn't swear on now as friends I don't know if you did this when he was small you and your friend are you know talking they say eat more as a holiday promise promise mother promise have you heard of that mother promise it so weird swear on your mother I said no no no it's school is there why why why everything changes because you swearing on your mother's life and God is saying there's no one greater I'm swearing on my own self meaning I'm telling on my the covenant is backed on me I am telling that I am doing this simple it's a promise backed by what I am saying so since I'm a God who doesn't change I will do it how I do it when I do it that is up to you that's why the verse says in Hebrews so after Abraham patiently endured he obtained the promise after enduring 25 years he obtained the promise right okay let's take a break we'll come back and continue


for past two and a half years as a UX engineer. So in Adobe, I was working for this search and sensitivity, which is their AI division. And I was building a lot of interactive prototypes and custom interfaces. So one such interface was this, where a user can draw an object, and this will do a reverse image search based on what they doodled on their stock website. There was also a dashboard which allowed for multimodal searching. So you can type in a keyword, and then also upload an image. And so here, like I have the keyword of car and then uploaded an image of sunset. What this gives me is a lot of images which have that keyword car and have that gradient kind of a background. There was also this option for you to search for similar faces. So these are all these different AI models. The researchers were churning out, and I was trying to build them into interfaces. Again here, I had a webcam module built into the interface where I can click a picture of myself, for instance, and then search for similar faces in the repository of images we had. So again, searching for images with the keyword car and also selecting images with people, having similar faces to mine. Lastly, this was a feature release which came out last year's Max conference from Adobe, which allowed users to have similar images based on these three attributes, which is content, color, or composition. Currently what you're seeing over here is there's a keyword for flower, and then you can search for color. I've uploaded this image of different palettes of a color, and the results, as you can see, represent all those different colors. So what I'm going to discuss today is condensing all that learning from building all these different interfaces for AI-driven products. This is going to be through an initial narrative.  And lastly, no managers were harmed in making up this presentation. So we start off like a designer, like any of you in this room. The responsibility for the designer was to inform the team about the user, conduct user research, secondary interviews, and figure out what their needs and expectations are from the product. Then there is a software engineer whose responsibility is to inform the team about the code, what the code is capable to do, what they can deliver in the given time, and resources that they have. Then there's lastly, there's a product manager whose responsibility is to inform the team about the business goals just to make sure the product they're going to deliver lives up to the expectations of the business goals in terms of the motive of the company and whether it generates the revenue. So that everyone in the end of the day gets a salary. So let's imagine this is the team we have and their task to build a dashboard. So based on the research the designer conducts, they come up with this interface for the dashboard. Now, unfortunately, though, when the designer hands it over to the software engineer, the whole interface breaks apart. They just put their minds together and just try to understand it. But sadly enough, the product manager is not happy with the whole sprint wasted on this task. Again, they come together and see what they can do. And they figure out they're possibly lacking expertise in terms of the data that they're presenting. So they bring a data scientist on board and try to understand what all the limits and bounds that they are working with. So the data scientist informs the team about what all goes into presenting and visualizing data. And armed with this information, the designer goes back to the drawing board. They understand that the data they are trying to present would only work for certain limited bounds and ranges. So what the designer does is now comes up with a slider at the bottom of the interface and asks the software engineer to limit it to only the conditions at which the data is required by the user. Now, with the product working fine, the data scientist gets a bit more ambitious. They're like, OK, maybe we can even speculate what the data would be down the line. So the data scientist comes in and says, we can put in an integration algorithm, project what this thing would look like down the line. But again, unfortunately, the thing breaks apart. And as product managers, again, not so happy with their progress. They again come together as a team trying to figure out what can happen. And they think maybe for projection, they need something smarter than just an initial regression. So they bring in an AI machine learning engineer whose role over here is to inform the team of all the possible algorithms out there to project and forecast on the data. There's one caveat, though, the machine learning engineer projects, is that I can tell you about all the possible algorithms, the parameters, and the data. But I can't tell which one would work, because machine learning is kind of like this magical black box where you'll have to try and figure it out for yourself. Luckily enough, the designer was competent enough to interact the prototype they had built with the APIs that machine learning engineer was providing. So what they got was this fancy prototype which had different options on the top right where you can select which model you're trying to work with and with which parameters. And so it goes that the second option which the machine learning engineer had provided worked splendidly well. They all had a great bonus. And didn't I say it was fictitious? But yeah. So just like every other story, it has some morals as well. You might remember yourself as a designer thinking that, OK, if I know whether this can be deployed in code and whether it fits the business needs, I'm good to go. But if you go towards more in the data science and data visualization with machine learning embedded into it, you have to widen your skills in that domain as well. You might go about asking, OK, how would I go about doing this? There are all these tools readily available that have helped me in the past. So just to get started in data visualization, you can pick off the shelf tools like Microsoft Excel and Tableau to put your data and visualize it. If you're a bit more on the code savvy side, you can try these JavaScript libraries D3 and Vega. There are also these books and people which have been very helpful. You can follow them on Twitter, look for their videos on YouTube, and also read through their fantastic books. Onto the AI and machine learning side of things, just to get a hands deeper into it, you can try for all these different cloud-based APIs provided by Amazon and Google and put your data and see whether it works for those algorithms or not. There's also this fantastic tool which recently came out called Runway ML. It is currently targeted towards artists to create new creations based powered with machine learning. But it's a good testing ground for you to understand what can actually do with machine learning. Also, again, if you're a bit more on the coding side, you can try ML5. It is a library from the processing organization. Processing, if you're not familiar, it's like an introductory library for coding for artists. And again, this allows you to do all the plethora of things which something like TensorFlow might allow you to do. Onto the side of the books and people, you might have heard of Andrew Ng. He's the person who started Coursera with the motive of informing everyone about machine learning. He has this great book coming up for machine learning yearning. It talks about all the things that go into making AI-driven products. There's also this great YouTube channel called Two Minute Papers, which goes into all the upcoming AI machine learning papers under two minutes in a very interactive and interesting manner. Lastly, again, going for the code inclining folks over here, there is this course called Fast.AI, which is all about the implementation details of AI, not going into the nitty gritty is what an Andrew Ng Coursera course might be going into. But you'll be like, OK, I get all this, but how do I go about doing things? So for me, it's like machine learning is this black box, and we are like baffling buffoons around it. We don't know what goes inside it. All we can decide is what is the input and what is the output. And that's what a black box is. You just decide what goes into it and analyzes based on the output.  So just to start off, let's take this example. We are in Hyderabad, right? We don't care about hot dog or not. We care about this biryani or not. So let's imagine you're doing social media marketing for this company called Paradigm Biryani.  Do they contain biryani or not? So the first thing you can try to do is visualize the data. Scrape all those images out, put it on the screen, and see what the data is telling you. What you're trying to do is look for any biases. So if you've been a food blogger, you might know that people usually take pictures of food from the top. So your data might be inclining towards that. And suddenly, if someone uploaded from the front, the model might not be able to analyze it. So what you'll have to do is equalize and balance your model for all the disparity of images that a user can upload. Secondly, if you find that there is a lot of variation in what the users are uploading, you might want to go for custom training data. What I mean by that is take all those images that you're getting and get them labeled to crowdsourcing offerings out there. There's this fantastic one called Figure 8, which was Crowdflower earlier. But you can also try something like MechanicalTurks. That allows you to do is create a task as a questionnaire for people to label those images. It does come with its own set of responsibilities because you are actually offloading that task and outsourcing it to the global world. So you have to make sure that you have checks and balances in there. And also, you have to make sure that there's this slight ethical conundrum around it because people, those who are actually filling those surveys out, are not paid equally. So you might have to take that into consideration as you go about doing it. Next up, let's say you figured your data set out. Then you go to a machine learning engineer.  They'll be like, OK, do I want to train this model from scratch? Do I take a pre-trained model? Do I take ResNet? Do I take Inception, ImageNet, whatnot? And then they'll be like, OK, what will be the parameters? What's the decay ratio? What's the learning rate? They might be able to give you a pre-canned thing where you can just have to decide one thing or the other. But at the end of the day, as I said, because it is a black box, what you'll end up doing is creating this interactive prototype, which will have all these different options visualized in front of you, and have those parameters as sliders where you can decide at which slider value does it perform the best for my use case. So you expose all the levers, throw it out to the team, and test all the permutations possible. Next up, once the parameters are finalized, you have to make it productized. So you go about simplifying it. You decide, OK, at this threshold, I see that the model is performing best where it can distinguish between one biryani image versus the other. So to sum it all up, what I first see the role of design has been, it is all about removing uncertainty early on. That's where people brought in designers. Even if it was a consumer product, people brought in designers to understand the user's needs and preferences before they actually develop and put it in their hands. If it was a dashboard, they also have to add an additional responsibility of understanding the incoming data. And lastly, if it becomes an AI machine learning problem, you also have to bring it to context all the possible algorithms and parameters you can use. So with that, I thank you for joining me.


AIM by Artifact, a vision for healthcare in the age of artificial intelligence. AIM is a vision for a mobile clinic that makes patient care more flexible in the age of artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles. A man enters a parked, self-driving pod. The interior of AIM is designed to create an immersive diagnostic picture of a patient using built-in AI-driven analysis. Conversational user interface collects data about a person's feelings and symptoms. At his bathroom sink, the man says, I haven't been feeling really well since I slept last night. I wonder if I'm really over that flu or just stressed about what's going on at work. A smartwatch transmits key phrases. AIM collects ambient data from an array of Internet of Things devices within the connected home. Patients can report detailed information, see a summary of their AIM session, and keep in touch with medical professionals with visualized data. The AIM smartphone interface is shown. The immersive interior uses a combination of diagnostic tools, patient data, and augmented communication to make medical care for minor issues quick and easy. In the pod, the man's heart rate is checked and a doctor appears on a screen. AIM also incorporates telemedicine practices that are gaining momentum in the healthcare industry, especially for rural areas. The vision for AIM contains an onboard pharmacy to dispense prescriptions for routine medications. The pod drives away. AIM is just one concept within a larger vision for accessible healthcare on demand. Artifactgroup.com. Redesign the future.