Good afternoon and welcome. I'm Leigh Ann George, Coordinator of the Spec Survey Program at the Association of Research Libraries and I'd like to thank you for joining us for the third in a series of Spec Survey webcasts today. Today we're here from the authors of the survey on Rapid Fabrication Maker Spakers Services. The results of this survey have been published in Spec Kit 348. Before our presenter begins, I have just a few announcements. Everyone but the presenters has been muted to cut down on background noise. So if you are part of a group today, feel free to speak among yourselves. But we do want you to join the conversation by typing questions in the chat box in the lower left corner of your screen. I'll read the questions aloud before the presenters answer them. The webcast is being recorded and we will send registrants the slides and a link to the recording in the next week or so. Now let me introduce our presenters today. Dr. Micah Altman is Director of Research and Head Scientist in the Program on Information Science for the MIT Libraries. Matt Bernhardt is a web developer at the Libraries. Lisa R. Horowitz is the Assessment and Linguistics Librarian at MIT Libraries. And Randy Shapiro is a Senior Administrative Assistant supporting Chris Berg, the Director of the Libraries, and the work of the Program on Information Science. Wen Lu, who is a research intern in the Program on Information Science, isn't able to join us today. So use the hashtag ARL Spec Kit 348 to continue the conversation with them on Twitter, and now let me turn the presentation over to Micah. Good afternoon everyone. The talk today will go over a number of key concepts in Makerspaces and Rapid Fabrication. We'll talk about the strategic positioning of Makerspaces for a library and then about the survey results which are focusing on research library adoption and with recommendations and next steps. And there'll be time after that for substantive questions, 20 minutes or so. During the presentation if you have any clarifying questions, please use the chat and we'll attempt to clarify any confusions. There's a bunch of boilerplate. The most important of which is simply that if you like any of this then it's all due to all of my collaborators and supporters and to Leigh Ann's editing. And if you don't like something in the presentation then I messed it up. And during the presentation there will be a lot more words on the slide than I will speak through there for background and context. But don't worry, we'll hit all the key concepts. So a really interesting thing about Rapid Fabrication and Makerspaces is that they complete a lifecycle loop between fabrication and digitization between producing information and producing objects. And so they form a part of the information lifecycle. We'll talk a little bit about the concepts in the fabrication part and then a little bit about the input. And in between there are all of the things that libraries help with in terms of managing information. On the fabrication side, fabrication in this domain refers to the production of physical objects from digital models. Depending on the type of machinery you use, this can happen at a range of different scales from the microscopic to architectural materials from plastics to organic material to metals, shapes, time frames, budgets, and other considerations. We won't go into all of those things in detail but you should be aware that there are three broad forms of fabrication. One form of fabrication, and this is the sort of old style, certainly still in use, very useful, but not where a lot of the new advances are coming from are the subtractive, which means you've got a block of stuff and you remove some material from it. In the old days you might use a hand plane or a lathe and newer methods include laser cutting, plasma cutting, CNC. There's also a deformative process where you build a frame or a mold and then use a material to wrap around that. But where the technological advances have been coming most thick and fast are in the additive process. This is called, quote, 3D printing, unquote. Technically 3D printing is only one form of additive manufacturing. Generally additive manufacturing involves plastic but all sorts of materials can be used and it's usually a layered assembly process and a hugely developing industry. The other side of this coin is developing models to make into physical. And there are broadly two forms of digitization here, contact or non-contact. On the contact side, contact scanning acts like a 3D mouse that requires physical contact. More newer techniques involve different forms of scanning from small scans like MakerBot to large scans using lasers across entire buildings. And in between the process of digitization and fabrication there's of course a life cycle of management and modification of the information. Now that we have some contact straight, we'll talk a little bit about the strategic significance. And first I'll start with a few examples. And some of these examples are actually things that we learned that people at MIT were doing the last time that we put on a course on this. There are various uses in both teaching and in research. And various communities are using this. At the student side examples can be as diverse as creating an attachment for a robot or other machinery doing advanced fashion design using algorithms to design the next fashion or using models as a way of communicating, visualizing information. In the lab and industry there are a whole range of uses from medical implants to teaching aids to architecture. And then on the experimental side there are many things that are on the horizon from pharmaceuticals to embedded sensors and printable electronics which would mean that not only would you be able to print something but you'd be able to create something that functioned actively possibly collected more information that you would use in creating a new object. Fabrication is not just for engineers. It can produce benefits that improve research on a whole bunch of different disciplines. It does that in a number of ways. One, by enabling control over the materials for physical objects both from shape to composition to behavior as we get more and more technology. It lowers barriers both to making objects to portability to how long it takes to set up a physical environment for researching or what skills are needed. And even more exciting it enables new forms of design, design that's localized to particular constraints that reacts to an environment that is generated from a algorithm or a theoretical construct or that involves information cycle of sampling the world and incorporating that object, remixing and iterating. Because rapid fabrication creates information and uses information there are a number of opportunities to support the information lifecycle related to rapid fabrication. And this includes everything from helping people manage information from interventions to helping with digitization to managing collections of these objects. And we found through our own work in this area through Literature View that approaching this area for patrons generally requires answering a number of questions that are not specific to a particular discipline. Can a physical object solve my problem? Where are there existing models? How can I use an existing object to make a model? Or how do I modify it? It's not just the last stages of where can I find something to print someplace to print and how can I prepare a model to be printed? So our survey focused on library adoption, the penetration of makerspaces into research libraries, and the pathways that research libraries were taking to make use of this new technology. What we found was a little surprising from our point of view that many research libraries are very actively engaged in makerspaces. Of the respondents, over 60% of research libraries were engaged in either providing, piloting, or actively planning a makerspace service offering, and over 15% more were investigating it. So there are very small percentage of libraries for whom this area is not on the resource, greater at all. Of those engaged in providing or piloting or planning makerspace service offerings, the core services generally include reference services addressing at least some of the questions in the previous slide, training on the equipment, providing and maintaining fabrication equipment, maintaining digitization equipment, and supporting some sort of repository of the information, the models that are produced from this. Core equipment and software generally focus on 3D printers, 3D scanners, and supporting design and conversion software. And there are common supporting services, training and pathfinders, online big guides. But although the core focus is on 3D printing and 3D scanning, we saw an amazing range of software and hardware technologies that libraries were offering.  So libraries are experimental in this area. We asked a number of questions to evaluate and understand how makerspaces were being implemented in libraries and attempt to understand what the minimum buy-in was. And what the target audience was. A relatively small percentage of respondents based expected use on specific user demands. But all of them almost targeted undergraduates as expected users, most expected graduate students, and about half expected faculty to make use of these resources. Most of these services came from existing funding streams, from the general budget, and using existing staff. And a small minority, less than a third, charge fees for this service, even for materials. And the core resources, generally the leading resources varied, but staff time was most commonly named as the biggest resource and equipment. And the median service had three staff members part-time at greater than 20%. There was a wide variation in the space available needed for this service. Though we did have a respondent indicate they used 9,000 square feet for a makerspace. The median was quite smaller. It's possible to deploy a makerspace service in a relatively small footprint and to deploy it in several months, though some services required longer time. Overall, the library experience that was reported to us has been quite positive. 40% of respondents conducted formal assessment, and that was based on usage data, user observations, satisfaction surveys. Overall, they reported generally positive evaluations, and many made some changes to extend or improve their services. There was no library reported reducing their services as part of this evaluation. But there was a note that there are a number of common challenges, and the big focus was on resource and maintenance. Generally, people spoke pretty highly of the service. One of our respondents said, during the pilot phase, we gauged interest from anyone we could talk to, and it became clear that the applications for the technology are so broad that any department could use it. I think this speaks to the interdisciplinary nature of this service. There were all sorts of high-flying quotes about the potential for this service as a catalyst, as a hub, as a next step for scholarship, etc. And that's just representative quotes. Overall, and this goes somewhat beyond the responses, but we have a number of recommendations reflecting on this. Makerspaces connect with a number of library core competencies. Libraries have core competency in information, in interdisciplinarity, in building a form of literacy with information and being able to create physical objects with information as a new sort of literacy, and in supporting research and teaching and creating spaces for research and learning. All of these dovetail with makerspaces. So overall, the feedback that we got in the survey, together with the literature review, suggests that fabrication is a potential fit for research library. It addresses a strategic opportunity to provide new services and to develop learning and teaching and research spaces. It aligns with library core values and competencies and serves a potentially broad patron community. But there are a number of caveats. This is very much a do-it-yourself culture, not an off-the-shelf solution. These systems are reported as high maintenance, as requiring knowledge in both the specifics of the system and in other related competencies. And it's important not only to get the system and the service contract, but to engage in readings, in conferences, and in events. And really to invest more in human capital in the people and expertise to address the core information lifecycle and service question, then in a specific set of equipment and skills around maintaining that. And it was also stressed that this is a rapidly changing environment and that one should plan for change. And we see this change at three levels. Short-term change implies that the equipment is going to require maintenance and care. And so it's not a plug-and-play environment or a set-it-and-forget-it environment. The second level of change is that these technologies are changing rapidly. So what might be a very good choice of hardware today might not be the optimal service in the next two years, three years. And in the long term, the rapid changes of technology are causing business models to evolve. For example, we would expect to see more fabrication services. Overall, the makerspace serves a lot of purposes and builds, and there's a lot of room for reference service, teaching, data management. It's not all about hardware, but one should expect the hardware needs and the role of libraries as a hardware provider or a gateway to change over time. Because continuing education engagement is so important, we've spent some time on the resources section. There are still very few books and articles on them, and most are at the high level. But there are a number of resources, and particularly conferences and events, and active repositories where people are sharing their models. And this is a very important part of engaging in this service. Now we have more boilerplate. You can always ask us questions afterwards, and these slides will be posted later this week. Thank you, Micah. And just to reiterate, we do want your questions, so please join the conversation by typing those questions in the chat box in the lower left corner of your screen. We have one coming in now. Margaret asks, how do libraries deal with troubleshooting reference questions related to CAD software that their staff aren't familiar with? How do you create that do-it-yourself at those? Well, I would invite my colleagues also to jump in. We did not get responses specifically to that, but from looking at some of the resources that libraries make available, there are often a number of general tutorials, videos, mailing lists, and other help groups associated with software and with different communities at practice. So the resources for answering questions that aren't part of the standard set are, some of them are there if you look for them, and spend some time locating them. Creating a DIY SOS is, I think, a larger question. And I think that's a strategic question for libraries in general, but my personal view is it involves declaring what the organizational values are and then empowering people to experiment in developing services and pilots. And having some common framework for both transparency and for how these experiments are evaluated. I'd also like to say as a reference librarian, so this is Lisa Horowitz about Margaret's question, is that I think it depends on how you set up your organization and your makerspace. Do you decide that you have technical support because you need help with that kind of a response of a question?  That's a part of it anyway. But I think that thinking back to when we started to have all those printer questions that we didn't know how to deal with, or even now, sometimes you get Microsoft Word questions or whatever, it's all part of figuring out how you're going to handle those in advance and not assuming that just because people are in your library and you have stuff to offer them that the people who serve the desk or serve as reference staff will actually troubleshoot. That's just my throwing in there. So this is Matt Bernhardt. I would also chime in on the question of supporting a DIY ethos. I think my perspective on that is that you can do a lot to reinforce that approach by making clear that these are not in terms of how you position the technology, so making clear that these are not turnkey services that someone simply drops a 3D model off at a reference desk and comes back later to pick up a finished model. If you position the technologies as this is something that we use together or that you allow patrons to use under supervision or in collaboration with library staff, that goes a great deal of the way towards establishing both for the librarians and for the patrons that this is a technology that we use together. This is not just a service that you set and forget and come back to later. Erica has sort of a clarifying follow-up question. So who's supposed to have this DIY ethos? The librarian or the patron? I think the comments were directed at the librarian that the librarian has to engage with the technology and the core competencies. But I think that it's also communicating, as Matt said, the state of the technology to the patron. So patrons are often coming in with do-it-yourself ethos. And librarians need to match that. Amanda asked, how were some of the institutions that were a little further along addressing concerns with air quality and noise in the spaces? Did you see that in the responses? I don't recall seeing that in the responses, and it certainly wasn't a question that we asked in a quantitative way. In some of the surveys of makerspaces at MIT that we've done here and some of the reviews of the technology, it varies considerably. And the requirements for something like a water jet cutter requires some serious HVAC and safety monitoring, for example. Whereas a 3D printer using PLA has very little environmental effect or safety effect. And the noise, there may be some noise, but it's comparable to other office equipment that can be dealt with in some traditional space planning way. So I think it's an important consideration for those who are at the farther experimental end of the section. But given that most of the respondents are focusing on 3D printers and 3D scanners, the HVAC requirements are well within some normal office setup. You might have answered Randy Ryan's question here, but he asks, are safety training sessions required for patrons in some of these spaces? Is that a common requirement? I'd have to go back to the qualitative responses to see how many of web proportion. I don't have that offhand. It certainly is a requirement. In every service that we've looked at in detail, if there was equipment that posed serious risk, there was a safety training requirement and generally some sort of monitoring requirement. But again, there's little safety risk from a 3D printer, though you could manage to damage the equipment, but not yourself. Or from a scanner and a considerable from a cutter. Amy asks, has the makerspace become the primary campus space or do units still build and support their own spaces within their silos? So most of the respondents reported a single or, if I recall correctly, a single space, but that may not reflect all the spaces on campus. So I'm not sure that we have the evidence to speak to that definitively. MIT is unusual, but we last counted there were a dozen maker fabrication facilities and there were also several in the community. But I will say, this is Lisa again, I will say at the same time that although MIT has all those makerspaces, there are still people who, based on a previous survey that we did of our own campus, they're still interested in it because their department doesn't offer it. So there's a mix bag and there is a, I don't know what it's called, there is sort of an initiative to put a makerspace into a new dorm that may be coming up. So there are different ways of thinking about it. It sounded like your question is, is the library's makerspace the primary campus makerspace? And my guess, I'm going to throw this out, Michael you'll correct me if you saw somewhere that somebody says something different. But my sense is that it is only for those people who don't already have a place to go. I think I would amplify that. We did a qualitative survey, not published here of makerspaces at MIT. And what we found is that they generally weren't open to everyone. And so the, I think in many places the library is in a unique position of serving a broad community and an interdisciplinary one. And even those spaces that were available generally only address the particular part of the reference service. Where can I fabricate my model and how do I prepare? A part of a makerspace service in libraries may involve answering these other questions too, introducing people to a sort of physical information literacy, when information can solve their problem, where models are and how to find them in collections, both internally and externally, how to create new models. And the plethora of makerspaces in the area generally serve the last parts of that question set. Ryan has a question on the average hours of access availability of these kinds of spaces. I don't have that offhand. So I do think that we have, in the detailed survey we have sample people reporting on hours of services. Most, I will, I do recall that most of them were not 24-7, but a subset of library hours. And Jeffrey asked, did any of the libraries use students as part of their staffing models? And if they did, were they paid or volunteers? I can go ahead and chime in on that because I have just looked up the answer to that question. This is Randy speaking. We did have 24 respondents who provided us with details about position titles, et cetera. And of those, eight did indicate that there were student workers. It looks as if those would be paid. They were called workers. I did not see any indication of volunteer. In our other local research, we did find examples of people who were in classes who would assist others. So, you know, a collaborative training model, part of the do-it-yourself ethic, but maybe not part of the formal service. James asked, did you study the specific kinds of equipment used in the makerspaces? And by that, he did more libraries by high-end printers such as the Stratocys versus low-end models like the MakerBot. I think that's the question. Is anybody staring at our survey results right now? Well, here I was looking up the hours question, but I have nothing going on. All right, so sorry. To go back to the hours question of the people who responded, it looks like about 25% are open all the hours. The library is open, but others seem to restrict it to certain specific hours that relate to when they decide that they are appropriate. It does say for some of them, consultations are available outside of those times. Sometimes there's no service on the nights and weekends, other kinds of things. So, it seems like probably, yes, 75% of them seem to restrict the hours to a certain subset of the library's open hours. And then the other question was about the equipment. So, this is not for her. The impression that I have from the survey answers and also from the experience of accompanying Micah on the interviews around the MIT campus is that from the library's perspective, libraries are more likely to skew towards the lower end of the technology scale. So, offering things like printer bots or MakerBots as opposed to the higher end equipment like a Stratasys or the EO systems that can quickly run into 6 and 7 figures. And that applies not only with 3D printing, but for any kind of capability that you would take on, for any given manner of making, whether it's subtractive manufacturing or additive manufacturing, there are going to be kind of the 60% solutions versus the super capable or more highly specialized solutions. And I think the libraries or any kind of campus level resource is going to more likely opt for the more general or 60% solutions, just because when you start to try to solve the solutions that are offered by those $2 million or $200,000 machines, you quickly ramp up the monetary requirements and the staffing requirements. I would agree. I noticed that James has also reframed the question about did people use... His question was, did people use printers more for experimentation, pedagogy, low-end, or for actual research and production, high-end? And I would reframe his reframing and say that the intended use was, I think, to support experimentation, pedagogy, and some degree of actual research and that quite a bit of research can be done with lower-end equipment. For example, one of the examples we encountered here was someone who was doing biological modeling using a simple plastic tube as a model for larynx. With a 3D printer, even a low-end one, you can do much more complicated things. If you're doing robotics and need to make customized attachments, a maker bot will support real research if you're visualizing a model of a satellite for discussion during a working group. Again, there are many research uses. I think production use was not a main target. And I think, actually, this segues into the question from Erica England about what happens if we start thinking of the library as a home depot. And I think my colleagues will want to chime in on this, but I'll start. I think the implication of that question is that fielding a maker space makes the library look a little bit like a home depot. And I think that is a risk, but that may be I think that's the wrong way to think about the service. The service that a library usually provides does not have a competitive advantage in the hardware. For specialized hardware, or there are going to be particular departments, there are going to be particular service bureaus, if you want something printed in wax and then made into platinum, you can do that online. So we'll always be chasing the service bureaus there. But in connecting a patron with a particular who has a problem to a particular set of answers, from going from the problem that may be a vague thought that a physical object can solve the problem to finding models, to curating models, to getting the information needed to modify them, and either printing a prototype in the library or finding an appropriate place to materialize that object if it's a service bureau or department or a local fab shop. And I think that's a position which is sustainable in the library. We're just about out of time. We have a couple of quick questions here. Then we'll have to conclude. Suzette asks, are there any specific power requirements or infrastructure needed for the kinds of services that are being offered now? So this is Matt Bernhardt. I'll take Suzette's question. By and large, the kinds of equipment we're talking about do not have specialized power requirements. The MakerBots and 3D printers specifically of that type run off wall power, so there's no requirements for that. Should your library be in the fortunate position of spending $100,000 on a Stratasys system, there will be more restricted power requirements. But if you're in that conversation, the sales agent you're working with will indicate that to you. Similarly, for some of the other kinds of equipment that are a little bit less prevalent, things like laser cutters or CNC machines, the big requirement there is less about power and more about air quality because you're starting to produce off gases or dust or other contaminants that need to be treated environmentally. But again, that's smaller segments of the responses in terms of what kinds of equipment are being offered. Thanks, Matt. And our last question from Margaret. For those who are charging fees, how is the fee structure determined? Right. It looks like of 35 respondents, 31% are funding with some sort of usage fee. That's how they're funding it. I also have who is – how many people are charging and why, but it doesn't say how they got to this point. A lot of people it looks like are trying to recover costs. So their goal is to charge by how much it weighs or have some sort of a basic fee plus something to do with the weight. And that's just – most of those are talking about the 3D printing specifically. There is one library that responded that it has two tiers and that actually relates to service. So they've decided to break down the pricing and whether somebody does it themselves or if they use the self-service model. So yeah, a lot of them it looks like it's just trying to get some recovery of the money that they have put out towards the materials. I'd like to thank all of our authors and presenters and participants for your questions. Thanks for joining us today. You will receive links to the slides and recording within the next week. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. That concludes today's conference call. We may now disconnect. Preventors, please hold the line.


Hello, viewers. Preparing for EPSA examination or any exam for that matter has integral parts. You have to first study, then you have to revise it regularly and then you have to take mock test to assess your level of preparation and understanding. And you can also take the help of mentors to know how to wrap up your preparation. But among all these lies the integral part which is note making. Yes, still note making is the unsung hero of study techniques. And many of you have also already requested us to make a video on this matter. So, I am going to address the query of yours in this video. In this video we will be seeing about some of the prominent and right methods and techniques in note making. Before that why note making is important? Yes, it is important for revision. It will help you to revise the frequently occurring topics. And second it helps you to you know bring down the large volume static portions into small and crisp notes. So, this will again help you in your revision plus it will make it easy for you to revise and visit these areas and contents whenever you want. And most importantly note making is an integral as well as mandatory part of mains preparation. But for problems it is optional. Now comes the question of where should I take the notes? Now here I have two techniques. One is based on technology and the other one is pen and paper method. Now under technology yes I am talking about the e-notes method. Now under e-notes you can take notes in your laptop, iPad, in your phones and you can use the applications like Google OneNote. So, you can update and take down the points in these applications. Now if you take the pen and paper here also I have two particular methods. Now the first important method will be the use of loose papers. Now here you can take down the contents topic wise and you can segregate these contents using areas or based on the subjects or based on the syllabus also. And next comes the method of notebook. Yes like how we used to do in our college days we can use notebooks here also. But the question is which one is the best method? Now this depends on your convenience as well as based on the advantages associated with each of these methods. Now if you take the e-note here you have the advantage of you know retrieving it and revising it whenever you want and you can also copy and paste the contents from online sources easily. But one major disadvantage with e-note making is you do not have the feeling of writing. See writing becomes important because we have main examination which is a subjective paper and it is a written examination. Plus writing helps you to retain the contents in your permanent memory. But this writing is not possible in e-note making. But if you take the other method which is using loose papers here definitely you will have writing you will be taking down the notes using pen or pencil. And second it will be easy for you to add updates also because you can just insert one page in any topic and you can note down the update. But one of the major problems with this type of note making which is using loose papers is you know you can easily lose those papers that is one paper can be missing anytime or you may miss a whole area itself. So unless you are going to use a file or a proper folder to hold all those papers it will be not easy for you to maintain those papers. And if you take the note making method this problem is addressed there because already here the papers are binded together. So for note making what you can do is you can just partition the notebook and then you can take down the notes. And definitely here also you will have writing but the problem with this method is it is difficult to note down the updates because you cannot insert any page easily there rather you would have to you know make use of sticky notes. But in sticky notes also you will be having small space only. So these are some of the advantages and disadvantages in each of the methods. You can try each method and see which one is suitable for you. If you ask me I use the loose papers method but my friend uses the one note method and we both have a different kinds of preparation. And now what you have to note down in these notes and how you have to note down. Before noting down anything you have to remember one key point whatever you write in these notes it should be in such a way that it will be addressing each of the questions in every topic or it should be addressing any areas that could be a potential mains question. Now for this you need not you know note down everything that you see or you need not just leave points because you think it is vague. You have to be judicious in noting down the points. Let me take an example here. Assume that the Central Vigilance Commission has released a report today on corruption. Now here the current affairs will be the report findings and the recommendations of the commission. But what will be the static portion? You have to know that also. So regarding static portion will be noting down about you know what is CVC, what are its objectives and under which ministry it comes whether it is a statutory body or a constitutional body will be noting down which committee recommended it. So these are the crucial points that you have to know. But rather if you note down the unnecessary points like you know the techniques or methodology used in the report or the name of the CVC commissioner and all it is not important for the UPACI preparation. See the name of the CVC commissioner may be important in your bank exam or state level examination but not relevant in UPACI examination. So this is how you judiciously decide which content or which line is important in your note making. Now next will you be writing whatever you see like you know if the statement says this report has been released by World Bank. Will you be writing like this? No because if you write like that you will be noting down whatever there in the original source rather you just have to write like you know published by World Bank. This will be the short method. So here you will be using keywords, abbreviations, you will be using diagrams, flowcharts, mindmaps you will be using statistics and data and this is how you will make your note concise. Now regarding flowcharts, diagrams and mindmaps make sure that use them often in your note making otherwise you will find it difficult to use them in mains answer writing and as you know using these fetches your marks in mains and then make sure that your notes are arranged in such a way that each topic has you know why, where, when and what etc and this is where subheadings come. These subheadings will help you to organize your topics and it will help you to you know use sub areas, sub topics. For example, let me take Ukraine. Now before February 2022 whenever we talked about Ukraine we will be seeing about geography or you will be revising about the rivers or the bordering countries of Ukraine and the trade relations which Ukraine has with India. But after February 2022, Russia-Ukraine war is important for us. Now regarding this war what we have to note down is what led to this war or who are all behind this and what are the consequences particularly how it affects the international trade and what are the way forward and how India is in middle of everything. So these will be your subheadings. Now whenever you see any update on this issue you can just go to that topic and you can note down that update in that particular subheading. This will help you to update your notes regularly. And then wherever possible take down some prominent courts also courts by famous personalities, economists and the prominent world leaders. You can start your main sansa writing with those courts or can end it with it. And then finally after making notes just do not keep it aside review it regularly. Reviewing will make you revise it regularly and update it with current affairs. So note making is important and finally revising it is more important in our preparation. Because the mantra for clearing examination is regular revising as it will help you to retain the knowledge in your permanent memory. So that is all viewers. In this video we address the issue of note making, how to make notes and what are the prominent methods used by toppers. Now if you have any other interesting techniques share it with us in the comment section. I will meet you in our next video. Thank you.


Tom here from Lawrence Systems, and I am joined by VP of Lawrence Systems Brett Shitum We're gonna talk about the worst wiring job ever and we're gonna do some lessons learned We're not just gonna rant although that was certainly what happened when the project was going on and in my I've been in business since 2003 which makes that a rough it was like 18 years now hands down worst job ever is always going back to this Now my indoctrination into Lawrence Yeah, Brett got to be involved in this project because this is one Brett was working as a contractor before he had a full-time position here And this was like what did I get myself into type situation right Brett? At four in the morning. I was thinking that oh Yeah, we had a couple late nights at four in the morning to try to keep the project on schedule now a couple of these You want to talk about on this particular project one the question comes up. How do you get projects and that is done by Brett? Well, it's a it's a relationship thing right most of the projects we get are built on the relationships We have with other ID companies. Yep This is where you make the assumption that because someone's website says they do the same things you do you probably shouldn't talk to them They're your competitor But in reality is you'll find that if you actually reach out talks of the IT companies They can actually be a good source of leads. Maybe you have a proficiency They don't have and vice versa where you can lean on each other's skills And this is one of those where a IT company that is within my geographical region that I've went to lunch with the CEO Owner of that company quite a few times. We've some have become friends We chat every now and then good good acquaintances. Well, you know, I don't hang out with them that much but either way the Job came up and they said we don't do wiring and cabling but you guys do so we gave them a finders fee for Getting us this project, which was common case you're wondering how that works from technical background, but that relationship we have with them brought us this job, but I I don't know if I want to thank him for this mess But don't worry we have visuals we're gonna cut to a few times to talk about this to help jog our memories of disaster Now Yeah, there'd be some fun in it And one of the things we want to do here is we're pre-facing this because I also want to make sure we say our goal Is to not just rant about this but also educate and talk about like what warning signs we seen in the early parts of this project ways we mitigated a risk and ways that we you know made sure that this particular Project stayed on track despite Crazy people being involved and what did we learn? That we're not gonna do that particular company again, not the IT company We continue to this day to do business with them We didn't care much for some of the behaviors of the general contractor, but then we also as we dug deeper into project learn the GC was being dealt with in a crazy way by the people that actually hired them. So, right We'll walk you through some of those steps right there but one of the Let's go a couple of things in case you're not familiar with this type of work your general contractor How would you describe a GC right your general contractor is the person that really? He's heading up the whole job. He's the one hiring the wiring guys He's the one hiring the plumbers the electricians the the people that are actually gonna do the work He's kind of coordinating the whole thing and one of the things we learned later was they weren't the original GC for the project So you have the client that actually wants the work done They want this building built and then you have the GC they hired now They apparently fired the other GC and the other GC had also had some missteps So we didn't we weren't aware of we get in with the second GC then the next thing is We came in the GC that we dealt with had also fired the electricians and brought in another electrical crew So we seen some things there when we did the walk-through that were other warning signs Like why are you guys tearing up brand new electrical boxes? Well, they were all put in wrong Who put them in wrong the other people and then for whatever reasons that we are never clear on there Was another wiring vendor who came in and they bid it but then somehow and we don't know really why we know they Couldn't do it or wouldn't do it. We don't we never got it. That's why we were there So someone else is not someone else did it, but they also seen our price and said that's more than the other people I'm like this is what it's gonna cost for what you want, right? This is I mean this this project was in the $200,000 range roughly in terms of wiring it was just a lot of infrastructure to build It was a lot of rooms. It was roughly 300 or so drops that had to be put in but it's also the structure I'm we're talking like TV mounts and everything. There's a lot of it wasn't just cabling It's it's kind of the whole gamut of things, right Now first step is contract they People say Tom do you have a template and it's actually the opposite the general contractor has their contract They give you and what do you think of when you first reviewed it Brett where some of the dates a little Mystical well they it was funny because of having the the old General contractor that was fired their dates were set on those previous Contractor agreements and they were they'd written those into our contract and we were gonna have to meet those dates It was gonna be impossible. So the first thing we had to do is Restructure the dates we would be able to complete certain tasks and one of the ways you get paid on jobs like this is there's the Mobilization fee is what they will call it mobilization fee means the deposit and the deposit doesn't necessarily mean half Now a general rule will last for like a 50% down or on when we're doing a cabling type project or some variation But in this particular case they wanted it done right away So we asked for a really high mobilization fee now This is often in construction broken up based on accomplishments like as you build out You may have several payments to go across the job because especially with new construction The job may take multiple months because you have floors being put in walls being put up So you may build a rough structure and then as the next structure gets built come in and do it And then you put some stuff in the walls then the drywall people come in then you do it So you may get paid incrementally But one of the things is with these unrealistic which we did change in a contract We asked for a very large deposit on this We actually got I think 70% of the money up front or 60% up front I think is what we wanted just to start it And by the way where the job started in the quote and where it ended It didn't start as a $200,000 project. It was a little less than that and they just kept adding on It was all the changes to the scope creep as a lot of people would call it So the scope of the work kept changing It was it was interesting. I think I think part of also what we learned in this Was the communication factor too So we had that contract and that started the whole communication process of setting the right expectations I think people need to understand you need to first set the right expectation Yeah, and then you've got to communicate throughout the whole entire project And I there were issues we would have when we would go to meetings where not all the people And not all the players were there to actually have the right communication I mean there was one point where someone pretty much said hey, yeah, you can use those wires They were our wires for something else and they used them. Yes So that was part of it now one of the ways you mitigate this and don't worry We're getting to the photos for those you just things your time index. You just want to see the gore The one of the ways you mitigate that is when you have meetings and this is the the reality is the default way humans work Frequently is hey while you're here. Can you just do this or can you just do that? people will do and respond very well to verbal commands the problem is the Question may come up who told you to do that. I'm not paying you for that So one of the things you have to do and we were especially doing they would have changes Where they would tell us to literally put something on a different wall them was on the different drawings The drawings were very mismatched So we had to actually start taking the drawings and sketching on them where we were told Then we would always to do the cya We would cover our butts by emailing them and say I know you asked me to do this I want to confirm. This is the way it's going to be done. Now. This is actually happening here in the office in real time The general contractor says I don't got time for emails He was kind of being angry and saying get this over there No problem Just is the people on site would let us know in the office and then us in the office would then reiterate these emails Hey just confirming you've told us now to Put 12 more drops on this particular wall that didn't exist before by the way So we would draw the where the wall is and we're just confirming you want to do that Sometimes they'd reply sometimes they wouldn't but either way we always sent those type of messages Because this later came up on the back end for the billing of all the different overages that were charged for We had them all in writing that were done No one could argue with well your guys just chose to do them on their own without actually listening to the gc These are important little factors that come in there now what we did learn This is where a lot of the problems come in and we'll throw on some visuals here They actually had moved an entire wall And that was where some of these problems that come in we took pictures like this wall didn't exist But do you notice if you uh, I think we can probably zoom in this one's kind of blurry All these little drops in that wall There's another picture of it. Um That was all added. This was not like some of this was not original And these were some of the problems that had come in we learned that there was just a lot of craziness going on with the contractor they were we were here in detroit the Company that actually wanted this building. This was a new location for them here in the detroit area But but the what would happen is they would fly in And point and change where things would go just on the fly people who are doing the Um h-track system cut a bunch of our wires that were waiting to be installed so we come into that There were so many changes happening so often it was It was kind of a level of insanity that was really hard to deal with we also realized this was part of the insanity of We put this ladder rack up And the this wall wasn't there right the ladder rack was supposed to go through to the next room But then the wall was put up instead So yes, I remember that I was I was there that night Yeah, we we we were doing working later in the day And so you're not tripping over some of the other contractors and it was just insane to go that wall was not here Nor is it on any of the drawings we have who decided a wall and we'd find out that the the guy who The people the company and their team would fly in Point and tell people to build a wall and leave And then we're like there's a wall So this was so crazy watching this happen um So this is some of the things that that led to was this much wasted cable We wasted so many spools of cable because they would cut stuff And it was a bunch of half cut cable and a lot of these runs were really long. So it was just like, uh It was such a mess Trying to sort all of this out because we're like, you know, they moved an entire room I think it's this this is one of them This room was uh, you can see how there's like a space behind it The wires all originally ran to the wall They decided to move the room There's about a 15 foot or 20 foot gap because they wanted a closet behind it for another one of the rooms They tore our it room after we ran the wires and pulled it back This is kind of what looks like towards the end But it was just one of those things like We ended up with an extra cable because we ran it 15 more feet So many all these runs that are now Put into cable falls here, but they just decided the room was going to be elsewhere That's actually why some of these come back from over further as opposed to there But that's just that's an actually an exterior wall on the other side.  Uh, it was It was a lot of that now one of the things that we also had that had us there late was They kept upping the schedule because they wanted an open date to get right open um I don't know if I should have said yes. There's that whole Entrepreneurs said yes, but Brett said we should say yes So we we actually agreed But for a price to get it done So we brought a team in to finish we brought a team in so we had the original contractors and Quick clarification the way we work here at loren systems is you can say time on your website You only have a handful of people. There's no way you handle projects as big. Yes, there is We coordinate with a lot of different vendors and a lot of different contractors. We have a pretty good list Brett is uh taken over that burden from me of Managing all the contractors in in some ways we act like a gc because we have other parties that get involved when we need Projects we use contractors and we you know maintain great relationships with them By the way, this is one of the burdens you have to bear who who has to get paid first me or the contractors us Well, you'd think so We try to do that that way But the way you maintain good relationship with your contractors is they get paid even when you don't So but that's not the way it's always done. That's the way you have chosen to do it Yeah, but it does keep a better relationship with these vendors. Um, they know when they work for me They're going to get paid even when they see disaster strikes. So when we told them, hey, we need these extras They're like, we're gonna need money And my reputation is i'll pay them I'm the one that had not gotten paid all the way into Into late 2020 before they finalized the final overages to actually approve and pay them But all my vendors we actually use them for projects even after this and because they continue to get paid They're like and someone felt bad like they're like, wow you still haven't got paid on that uh that disaster job No, not yet That sucks They're but they also don't want to say it glad you paid me Yeah, exactly because we still need to keep these relationships going This is one of those little things that when we we actually To financially maybe we'll talk about this we self fund all of our own projects to be able to do this It does require keeping a few dollars on hand, but it does allow you to Uh maintain good relationship with vendors because we've got so many wiring projects We've done after this that with the same vendors with the same teams But we did decide to stay till 4 a.m A bunch of nights with the crew that we were paying a lot of money each Everybody got paid matter of fact we had anyone that knew how cable ends went on Even if you loosely knew how cable ends come I learned how cable ends go on That's where I learned how to punch down Then we had more lifts we had so many now The lifts there's a few in there. We did only put people on lifts that knew how to operate them and Actually, one of the cool things there's that one photo of the penny Let me find the penny photo I think we still have that in here That was kind of a fun thing was if you want to know how good these people are at operating the lifts a little bit farther There we go Yeah, well, this is the distance and we had to get these wires up and over this right here If you want to know how precise They are and they're driving it up and down. That's how close not once every time those wheels stop from that wall Without leaving a scuff or a mark on it. Yeah, it's kind of it's an art watching these Contractors who really know how to operate the lift so we put the your high end people as far as boots on the ground We had to test and label all these it turns out that That's easy. I stuck hard hat on anyone any friends I had that go Hey, want to make a few bucks grab a hard hat because this was a complete Compliance with osha everyone had to have hard hats full time during the construction project And visibility vests on there. That's why you see us wearing them But um, yeah, it was like run around stick test stick test it right does this one label printing labels and things like that We had so many people involved But yeah, let's just uh, let's just walk through some of the photos and you comment Brett on where Where you want to have a laugh here, but this was some of the extra wire that was Wasted this is all I remember walking into that and and looking at that going I'm going to have to Take that and do something with it and that wire doesn't isn't it weighs a lot It does that's cat 6a plenum. By the way, that was part of the requirements here. Everything was cat 6a plenum Everything was black. Everything cat 6a plenum one color wire Um, there's some of the rooms of spools we had just stacking up everywhere That was thousands of thousands of dollars of wasted wire. Oh, yeah There was so much of it wasted on there and that's why we're taking pictures of just random things that were done Up there the electricians they were some of them were beside themselves too because they had put stuff in take stuff out Um, they moved where things were right This one like they wanted this uh set up and those actually Uh cabling that we pulled through on here And I'm not even sure why we put network jacks sometimes on the outside like that It was we questioned it. We're like, are you sure it goes here? They're like, yes So some cabling now some of this is electrical, but then on It's just really confusing because this that's electrical, but right here Which in the end there's garbage cans. This is where we ran it on this outside This is what i'm talking about these ones are electrical But this little middle part is actually uh data that we're not sure why it was put there And we laugh because they they built a garbage can.  I think we did did we do these ones too? It was a another contractor did some tvs. It was confusing. Um, I actually I don't remember on this one I think I think this was somebody else So, uh, yeah, this one was a bowling alley. This is where it gets interesting because um, the bowling alley These are the bowling alley stuff and this is like a family fun center Right, um, but the bowling alley when they put this in we had to deal with getting wire over there But they were we were supposed to put the wire, but no one told us where the wires go So we kept asking and then one day we came in and they put the bowling alley floor in And you can't drive a lift on it. So it became rather tricky to get the wire over there The tricky situation boom lifts came into play Yeah, we had to hang with boom lifts to get over this. So bigger bigger equipment had to be brought in to, um Get some of that stuff done Oh, yeah And they had uh There's more pictures of that this Split unit's kind of funny because you're like, hey, that's a really big split unit for a very small server room Yeah, the split unit was supposed to be for the full server room uh Insert mystery well that came up one day and the h-track people are like we were told to put it here In spec it for a room x that's this size But then they cut the room in half and they cut it in half. So the split unit was on this side And you're like, I don't know. I guess that's where it goes now It was a calamity of errors. It was such a calamity of things going on And people Then uh, oh the reason I took a picture of this They moved the ceiling on us after some of the stuff was in so what you're seeing here is kind of funny the When you put in the fire suppression Um, it has to be at roughly the height of your drop ceiling So you know how the drop ceiling has the little fire suppression things that pop through they move the ceiling height And then all the stuff had to be taken back out Drained and cut because they'd already done some of the testing on it As I understood at least that's what I was told. I mean, I'm not I'm not an expert on that All I know is there was a lot of angry people that had to come back and cut everything They had they'd already left like their part of the job was done. We ran the fire suppression Now they're back cutting and moving the fire suppression up a little bit each one They had to recut and rethread all those pipes I remember seeing some of those guys coming out of the building not very happy Yeah, no one likes redoing work and that was a big part of what It's it's one of the things like yes, I was paid for it But it's like I ran that wire you guys cut it told me to run it somewhere else There's like this defeatedness that this job kind of gave you the sinking feeling Even it's not about money at that point. It's not about getting paid on it's like really I just ran that and now you cut it You decided a wall arbitrarily needed to be moved x amount of feet over and Yeah, they also had a very large space. Yeah big space They had the go-kart track which was interesting because no one thought about how to get the Go-kart track hooked up. We asked that question and someone says oh, I guess it probably does need wiring So we sometimes would ask the vendors who were there like the people installing the go-kart track and say hey What needs to be done here and then it would turn into Yeah, no one ever thought about that But then you had to then put it in writing that we heard from the go-kart people and tell the general contractor Who would then have to authorize the change for us to get paid? This is one of those things you have to be constantly like Brett said communicate communicate communicate in order to get this We know what needed to be done. We're being nice.  No never Ever done that we maintain despite all of this a really good relationship with uh, everybody involved here to get this done and We even uh one off a contractor we never used before he was actually there installing something else I think he was the audio guy, uh, but he said he knew how to punch cables. So i'm like What are you doing later? Hey guy, what are you doing?   What do you want to do this? This is and then he started just going through and punching lots and lots of wires Um and helped us with the testing and things like that Oh, this happened too You had the drywall people and then you had the people building cabinets This is actually the cabinet cutouts that went over like where you have the cabinet spotted up Um, it created all like this is what that's like an inside look at what some of these were So much of a mess, right? Oh, yeah. Well, and that's why I mean if you're wondering why there's so many photos And there's a lot more photos. It was about documentation. Yes, and that's why tom mentioned earlier Email he he responded in any change. There was an email Written of that change so that we could document it That's that was the most important part of what not that what we learned But what we did to be able to finally get paid on this and this is what protected us overall There was never any um Lawyers or anything involved that got involved at the end even though it took them a long time to pay We were persistent. We referred to our documentation. We referred to emails. We kept logs of what was changed I had everybody contributing photos We set up a shared google photos album in case you're looking for an easy way to do it And we still use it because it's just so easy to do Then everyone just shares within those photos and if you see something Take a picture of it if you see something questionable you talk to the other vendors Matter of fact feel free sometimes we made a series of quick videos where hey We don't know who did this but this wasn't like this when we left yesterday But just to let you guys know and that's because of the wall moving things like that So it really comes down to the same principles of documentation that covers you following up going especially whenever there's so much flying by Verbally that you come back and reply with hey, this is what I think you asked me to do I went ahead and did it just wanted to let you know and then at the same time you're updating your billing system So to speak any little time making those notes of all right What we quoted and what happened are two different things and once that exceeded matter of fact We had a series of uh to help cover some of the overages We actually asked them for a couple more times to pay us like right. This is just a lot of overages but in the end we did it um they it was uh Boy, that's a walk down memory lane of that day It was so many times we stayed non-stop because we have worked here Kind of at the officering today and we would spend the rest of the afternoon in the final push We were there a couple times till 4 a.m. We were like Non-stop I also bought a lot of I bought food and pizza for not just my team I would come in there and I was because it wasn't just us by the way We had the other people we had artists putting wall art up.  He can use my lift today. So we did some swapping of things like that. It was We kept the environment as friendly as possible forthcoming um Because you know, we're all trying to reach a goal We're all trying to get this project done whether you're an electrician a plumber and the the plumber people They I remember they had problems because getting the soda machines hooked up They used our tubes that were buried to pull wire so We had to coordinate with them because some of the wires not by choice, but there's no way around it There are the the soda tubes also have some cat six wire in it Yeah, do you remember that they're coming up out of the same hole for the cash furniture? We're like This was ours and then some people like no, it's ours and we're like, well, there's only There's one for electrical. We can't use that one and there's one for us. So, uh, that's how that tube got shared Yeah Uh, well, hopefully you were either entertained or uh, we're just looking for you know What we did to mitigate this or whatever happened on it But it was uh, definitely a fun project in some ways that looking back. I'm smiling I was certainly not smiling at 4 a.m. Not not not in the least um, but it's These things happen. This is a really odd one and we do so many wearing projects. This is the only one in Since 2003 that I've been in business even when I worked in corporate I've never seen such a crazy amount of changes It was crazy.  Yeah, you just you need to learn how to document You need to learn how to make sure you're you set the correct and and the right expectations with the general contractor Because the expectation is everything right? Um that customer experience Um, the way the way things are handled the time in the time frame. They should be handled Don't shy away from projects like this Embrace them. Yeah everything's a lesson learned and um You know in in the big picture We did make money when we break it all down and we divvied up the piles and we paid all the contractors Even though I got paid later, even if I calculate some interest on that and things like that in the end We made money on it. So ultimately that part was, you know, that's the goal to be profitable on things So we that that goal was met. Um, I don't know if it really was enough for some of the mental issues I had dealing with it like just the oh my gosh, are we gonna complete this project? But yeah, whatever we did. So here we are here. We are smiling about it years later making a YouTube video So hopefully you found this insightful. Let me know in the comments down below We can always have a more in-depth discussion on the forum on this But yeah, that's that's it. This is going to be my simple reply when hey time. What's the worst wiring project ever? It's this one. Here it is. This is this one. All right. Thanks And thank you for making it to the end of this video. If you enjoyed this content Please give it a thumbs up if you like to see more content from this channel Hit the subscribe button and the bell icon to hire a sure project head over to laurance systems.com And click on the highest button right at the top to help this channel out in other ways There's a join button here for youtube and a patreon page where your support is greatly appreciated For deals discounts and offers check out our affiliate links in the descriptions of all of our videos Including a link to our shirt store where we have a wide variety of shirts and new designs come out well randomly So check back frequently And finally our forums forums.laurancesystems.com is where you can have a more in-depth discussion about this video And other tech topics covered on this channel Thank you again, and we look forward to hearing from you. In the meantime, check out some of our other videos


If you use the e-cam live virtual camera feature with zoom then this video is for you Hello, and welcome to take one tech. My name is Alec and in this video We're talking about the virtual camera feature of zoom of e-cam live rather to use specifically with zoom And I want to just highlight some potential issue that you may have run into with zoom Where you might not feel like you're getting quite the picture quality you deserve out of it Well, there is a reason for that and I'm going to explain that in this video But I need to just back up for one moment in case there is anybody who has stumbled across this video who? Wasn't even aware of what e-cam live was, you know, maybe you've been searching for something related to zoom virtual cameras And so on and I've just found this video Well e-cam live is a live production environment for the Mac that allows you to produce videos like this on the fly Adding in overlays sound effects things like that All as I say in a sort of live production environment you can also use it for streaming for live streaming But it also does have a built-in Virtual camera so that you can use this as the feed that's going into your zoom meetings And what that means is you can add all of the sort of production values that you can do with e-cam live I'm putting in overlays like this for example This is a good time to tell you if you want to try e-cam live go to take one tech.io Slash e-cam and get your free trial and in fact for the month of July of 2021 There is 30% off so it's no better time to actually try it out and sign up than than this month But yes, it does allow you to do all of this sort of stuff that I'm doing here in these videos Live with no editing and you can bring all of these production values into your zoom meetings and presentations or webinars or whatever it is There's also interview mode where you can actually bring guests on into your production And then feed that into your webinar or whatever sort of separate from zoom So that's another feature that you can do with with e-cam live and it's it's what I use for making these videos It's what I use for my zoom calls teams meetings things like that and it is a bit of a game-changer really you can also Really level up your presentations as well by combining this with something like keynote or PowerPoint and actually Bringing in those presentations into your productions and feeding that into zoom as well But I did a video all about how to do that. So I'll leave a link to That's up in the top corner. But anyway, that is a brief introduction to e-cam live But for those of you who are already aware of it then let me now talk about How to actually start using it with zoom and let's get on to the main main issue that I want to discuss Not discuss solve because it is a solvable problem that has been solved So don't worry about it. So first of all when you install E-cam live and when you are signed up to the pro account the virtual camera feature is something that you will need to install But don't worry. It's not tricky and I'll show you how to do that If I just share my screen come into a demo mode for one second and then here in the menu at the top You'll see this little output menu And if I click on to that then down here We've got virtual cam and it will just say install virtual cam when you first start out So just make sure you click that to install it But then you can simply toggle it off at will and when you are in the sort of preview window here You'll see that the cam is basically just I use my pro mouse. It disappears off the screen. That's no good Is it it's just here? Anyway, you can see this little cam icon that means that you've got your virtual camera active so then it will show up in your system as just another camera and Perhaps this is a good time to actually come out demo mode and show you how to actually get this then into zoom Or in fact any other application There's a bit of a workaround that you need to do if you want to bring it into Microsoft Teams So I'll have to make a separate video about that because Teams is a little bit more finicky about exactly what virtual cameras they allow or don't allow So I'll make a video about that one separately But if I do my screen sharing again So now I'm in my zoom and if I come into my zoom preferences Just clicking the little cog wheel and bringing up this this is where you would select your video and audio So come down to video and I've already got it selected there But if you come to this drop down where you could select your camera It simply appears in here as e-cam live virtual camera. So just like my FaceTime camera for my Mac or my webcam my Logitech webcam or these other these are all actually other virtual webcams that I've tried out in the past But I'm always just defaulting to e-cam live now and as you can see The little preview that zoom gives you is a preview of what you're seeing and that's because it's actually working isn't it it's taking my e-cam live camera and Putting whatever is in e-cam live that would then be feeding into zoom now incidentally there is audio as well and If you are going to be using Two-way audio where you need to have maybe you're doing a production where you're bringing guests in or things like that And need to feed the audio into zoom and maybe you need the output from zoom coming back into e-cam live to feed back out To your interviewees on e-cam live something like that Then you may need another bit of software which I've discussed in a another video Which I'll leave a link to it in the top corner Which is called loopback But a lot of people think that you absolutely need loopback in order to use zoom or use the virtual camera feature with zoom But that's not actually the case So do check out that other video to see if loopback is something that you actually need or not But in any case let's come back to this section because we've now selected our virtual camera So everything seems to be working doesn't it? So what exactly is the issue? What's the point of this video? Why isn't it ending now? Well the reason is zoom is treating this as a camera and Some people don't realize but when you've got two people in a zoom meeting It will be broadcasting the images from the cameras at high definition to the two Attendees so you'll see each other in high definition But as soon as you add a third person into that call three or more people It will actually drop the resolution down to 720 from 1080 So that means that you're then getting lower resolution from the camera But because we're using e-cam live we might be sharing our desktop for example You might be doing a screen demo or something like that You wouldn't necessarily want your high definition desktop being reduced down and low into a lower resolution Now if you are doing screen sharing natively in zoom the way that obviously intended things to be done Then what they do is they actually when you go into your screen sharing in zoom and share your screen Then they actually bump the resolution back up so that if you're sharing a High definition screen for example your full monitor Then it will broadcast that at high definition So that is how they get around that or that's how they they do it and the reason why they reduce the Resolution of video is because it's just a bandwidth thing really You know the more people you get on the more bandwidth it is taking up in order to broadcast those high definition Images and so that is why they do it. So how are we going to get around that in here?  I'm afraid of of zoom So if I come back to my screen sharing for a minute and share the correct window, this might help Where is it? There we go get these out of the way You just drop those down. So here we go. I'm in my settings in zoom now So if you are on the pro account in zoom or higher It doesn't work on the free plan. I think it's a free plan. Isn't it the one below that? But if you are on the free plan, then I'm afraid this doesn't work But uh, if you come down to your account settings So go into your account account settings and then come to the in meeting and advanced section here And then we're going to click on that one and it's going to take us down to all of these settings As you can see, there are really quite a lot of settings in zoom on that and in fact If anybody would like to see a video specifically about all of the different settings in zoom Then leave a comment down below and I'll make that video In fact, I will probably make the video anyway to be honest with you But uh, you know, leave a comment down below if you'd like to see that and maybe I'll pump it up the list a little bit So, uh, yes, but anyway as I was saying so we come into the in meeting and advanced section And then if we scroll down a little bit what you'll see is uh, this one here It says group hd video and that's the one that we could toggle on And basically as it says this activates higher quality video for host and participants And what that means is it's going to stop it dropping down that quality when you add more people into the meeting But as it says here, this will use more bandwidth. So do bear that in mind It's going to be a bandwidth issue for you But also it's going to be a bandwidth issue on the other end If you are broadcasting those things over to the other side as well So that is something that you may or may not want to toggle on But it will resolve this issue because you'll then be broadcasting In higher resolution and so that will then mean that all of your Ecum live will be broadcast over to your participants And that will let as I say it will resolve the issue So there is another way to do it because as I say that is something that's only available on the On the pro plan and above for zoom So but there is another way to do it and it's a bit of a work around but it does work and ecum live I've thought about this so first of all, let me come into my demo mode of ecum live again And There's two ways and it's to do with using screen sharing in zoom whereby instead of actually having the zoom Instead of having the ecum live virtual camera feeding into zoom to share our screen What we're going to use is we're going to use the zoom screen sharing To share our ecum live window And our ecum live window can then share whatever else we want to share So it's kind of like two layers of sharing if you like and so the way that you could do that is Now i'm in ecum live obviously in my demo mode if I go into the output You can also output to a monitor so we could output to a video video monitor So what i'm doing at the moment is I've got my ecum live window that you can see on the screen the one that i'm actually sitting in And i'm doing my live demo mode of my whole desktop But i'm actually also I've got a video monitor of my output from ecum live which is going to my third monitor. So I've got Here i've got my The main monitor that i'm using but I could also output it to my this one This is actually I don't know why it says color lcd because that is actually my macbook So it could be labeled a little bit better. But anyway, that is actually my macbook's main monitor My macbook screen and then I've got this one here, which is a a third monitor So I am currently putting out the output from ecum live is going to this particular monitor So that is showing everything that you're seeing in the output and in the same way on zoom call If I wanted to share my my output from ecum live what I could do then is I could make sure that this is on So video video monitor is going to this other monitor And then in zoom what I could do is I could go to my screen sharing in zoom So let me just come out of this demo mode for a moment And what I'll do is I'll come over to This little screenshot. I haven't decided to Actually open zoom and do this live because then I would be running zoom and this at the same time And it would cause a bit of a infinite loop of Of screen sharing. So I've just taken a screenshot of the screen sharing window in zoom So presumably if you're a zoom user, you'll be familiar with this little screen that I'm going to show you now And this is basically when you're in zoom and this is just a screenshot of it But when you're in zoom and you click share screen With the little sharing feature that's built in in zoom you get a few options You get to either share a particular screen. So it's called desktop one desktop two or desktop three Or you get to share the little whiteboard that's built into it Or you can share a device or you can share a specific window Well, what so what I was just telling you there was because I'm using the the monitor The video monitor feature of ecamm live This is my desktop one which happened to be the zoom call that I was running at the time of just testing this Desktop two was this main desktop that I'm looking at now Which has got my so all my ecamm live controls on it and desk three was that one that I was using as the The video monitor. So if in zoom I was to share desktop three then what that would do is That would then rather than zoom thinking that this was a virtual camera It would treat the outputs because it's taking the full the full output from that monitor It would think that that was screen sharing and so it would maintain that higher resolution Which is what we're trying to do Now what you need to bear in mind though is for your Guests or the other people that are on the meeting with you If you think about what happens normally when you share your screen in zoom You get your screen sharing window, which is the screen that you're sharing But then you also get your little camera picture in the top as well Don't you because then you can see all of the participants of the meeting and you are one of the participants But you're just sharing your screen whereas now what they're going to see is they're going to see the ecamm live window Where you might be sharing your screen through ecamm live But they're also going to see your little what's normally your camera window But that's also going to be the same thing because you're using ecamm live as your virtual camera So what you may want to do is just actually toggle off your camera On in zoom so that it just doesn't duplicate those two things And so then you just get the the main live sharing window And if you're doing something like this you can still have yourself in the shot For example, if you're doing a screen share and you could still be in the window in this in this way Like as I am in this little box if you see what I mean So that is how you would do it by sharing it to a desktop now What happens if you're on a laptop and you don't have an extra desktop? Well, there's a couple of ways around that now. First of all is I'm going to link to another video. I did about this, but There's these little things that you can get called virtual monitors and it is basically a little hdmi plug But with no cable on the end of it. It's just a little sort of dummy thing and they these are used in Sort of servers and things like that where you want to have it's called a headless mac or a headless computer And it basically means a computer that's got no monitor But you plug one of these in and the the computer thinks that there is a monitor attached and you can actually share to that So I won't go into this in full detail here because I did do a whole video about it But this is a way that if you wanted to have like a secondary display to share things to that you didn't actually need to see There are use cases for that and this is one of them then these little things that cost Five dollars or something like that is a way around that. So I'll link as I say link to that video Up in the top corner and in the description as well Now there is another way that you can get around this issue the third way And I'm going to show you that if I come into my demo mode What we can do also is if we come into our outputs again So all of these things that I'm talking to you about the virtual camera and everything They're all in this output menu. So here we've we've already looked at this video monitor one We've looked at our virtual camera. We've also got this one called sharing windows So you can toggle this one on and off and by the way, this shows up here is this little symbol here It looks like two windows the virtual cam is there and then this one is says out when we've got this little The the output monitor switched on but so we come down and we have sharing windows switched on And what that does is once again in sharing in ecamm live. Sorry in zoom. I beg your pardon Then what will happen then is if I come over to my Demo screen here again, and I need to come out of demo mode do too many things at one time here So this is back into our zoom screen sharing So we've already looked at how we could share our desktop if we've got it going to that one But we can also use this one So the ecamm live sharing window and that will do exactly the same thing It will share the output from ecamm live And we just need to make sure that that is toggled on in those settings So I hope that I have explained that adequately and I hope that that is clear I know there was a couple of different pro plans we're talking about so ecamm live pro plan and the zoom pro plan Two different screen shareings ecamm live screen sharing and zoom screen sharing So it can sound a little bit confusing, but hopefully Uh We may have managed to cut through some of the The confusion there I hope but if I haven't and there's any questions left unanswered Then please do feel free to leave them in the comments And I will certainly get around to answering them as soon as possible Because I'm here to hopefully help and make things a lot easier rather than adding complexity And while you are down there if you did you do go down to comment Then don't forget to also like and subscribe to the channel turn on notifications So you get notified whenever I do make any more videos I'll leave a link to some of my other zoom related videos over in the bottom right and until the next video. Have a great day


Good as new Fixing that jacket has been on my to-do list for about three months So good to get that sewed up. It just was a little tear that happened. I think last summer So good to have that fixed and now I am off to the grocery store to pick up some Energy bars shop blocks honey stingers all that good stuff for running one more big run tomorrow before the race So start in the vlog at 5.07 PM it's Sunday afternoon. Can't wait to read a book tonight. Just relax and Was looking through my bookshelf Damian and saw some Steinbeck novels and thought of you I'm not gonna pick one up now, but it's tempting to Possibly possibly revisit East of Eden soon. Anyway, that's topic for another day. All right All right, so a couple years ago I made a little bit of a mistake purchasing way too many gels now gels don't go bad, but So I'm gonna use these for a long long time these guys, but my brother his wisdom taught me about these guys honey stingers so this is Something a little more substantial for your stomach when you're running Whereas gels are really good for like that short burst of energy to maybe finish a race or if you know You're about to go up a huge, you know huge climb on a on a run or a bike ride or whatever it might be So anyway, we got the honey stingers. Oh shop blocks of the missing you so much and then Trying something new from honey stinger as well Organic energy choose so anyway Thank you true love for the incredible leftovers. I'm not afraid of leftovers especially this pasta stuff it Gets better with age dive in Thanks just got serious little prep for the morning