So welcome and thank you to all of you for joining us for another episode of The Nonprofit Show. Today we have John Bain joining us. John is the Director of Platform Technology with Generate Impact and we're gonna dive in deep about tech goals. But before we do that, we of course want to acknowledge who we are if you haven't quite met us yet. Julia Patrick is the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I'm Jarrett Ransom, the Nonprofit Nerd CEO of the Raven Group. And we are, gosh, come in upwards to our 400th episode here. And we couldn't do this without our generous presenting sponsors. So thank you to our sponsors. These companies exist to help you do more good. And yes, I'm pointing, I know that's bad etiquette, but it's really great because these companies exist to help you fulfill your mission in your community. So if you have not checked them out, please make sure that you do that. And one of our sponsors Generate Impact is here today as a guest on the show. Again, John Bain joins us, Director of Platform Technology with Generate Impact. And we are so thrilled to have the support of Generate Impact and also to have you on today. So welcome John and thanks for joining us. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. Okay, we're amazed by your title first off. I mean, we think you're already a cool guy because you've got a Fender guitar behind you, which we immediately spotted. I just have to witness. But Director of Platform Technology, that sounds pretty heady. And before we get into all these questions we have for you, can you share with us what that actually means? Sure, absolutely. So platform technology in the context of our definition is really capitalizing on either your existing investment or on an investment that you're potentially about to make as a nonprofit organization or an organization that is just doing some work to put some benevolence and go back into the world. We're really trying to help you surface and utilize the tools to the best of their ability and make sure that they're a good fit for you, that they're enabling your mission. And generally we focus on things that already exist for our clients, products that are off the shelf. We do our best to be technology agnostic so we're not beholden to any organization or any particular technology. We're looking at what fits for you and there are a lot of good fits in platforms like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 or Zoom or any of these others that already exist. So a little less on the custom development side and a little more on the, how do we make the most out of what's already there? You know, I'm glad you said that because I think one of the things, and Jared and I since the get go, we've had so many tech experts that have come on and talked with us, who've pitched us to be on the show. And a lot of times we hear this concept of like, get rid of everything and start all over. And it's such a frustrating, expensive, I would dare say frightening thing because you're like literally scraping it and so it's really cool to hear you kind of say, no, let's figure out what you have and work through it. Well, most of the time you don't wind up with a technology by accident, you normally have that for a reason. So let's focus on, let's take the good aspects of what's there and capitalize on those and maximize those. And then the things that are a little less desirable, well, we can change that, that becomes our goals. I love it. So let's get into that and ask you what our technology goals, I mean, we were talking before we went live, the nonprofit sector man, we got goals down. We set goals, it seems like for everything, but Jared, have you ever worked with an organization that had technology goals? You know, I haven't, but the irony of this truly is that when I do my strategic planning process with clients admin, I help them assess their admin and that includes their technology. So I am eager to learn more of how we really drill down to identify our tech goals based off the size of the organization where they are and where they want to go, right? Cause it's not just for today. So I think it's wonderful and I would love to know, John, like how do we even identify technology goals where do we start? Sure. So goals are indicators of progress more than they are anything else. If you set a goal to raise X amount of dollars for your organization or your cause, when you hit X amount of dollars, do you stop fundraising? No way. No, of course not. You set a new goal and you keep moving. So they become markers or indicators that you're making progress, that you're moving in the direction that you want ahead. If you think about goals and other areas of your life, generally, if you have an employer or have been employed at some point, somebody has assigned a goal to you or they've told you about the organizational goals or whatever those things are. And they're always indicators. And technology is not really that different. The biggest difference is that technology goals need to enable your organizational goals and your people goals and your growth. They need to enable but not define. They have to enable your mission. And that's what the goal of your technology is. How does this technology, how does this whatever we're doing make me able to do my mission better? How does it make me better able to support the people that are here helping me get to where I need to go? How do I help my folks grow in this world using this technology? How does it help me achieve those goals? And the other thing that I think you have to think about when you consider technology goals is they gotta be flexible. Just like you don't stop when you reach a goal, the goal changes and you move to the next one, your technology goals are the same way. They're not going to stop. Technology doesn't quit changing because you found the right fit for your organization, right? Whoever this, you know, there's always a next version of the application that you're using that's great for you. Somebody, by the time that you touch any piece of software, any service, anything, somebody behind the scenes is already working on the next version by the time that you get your hands on the newest release. That is so true. And I know it from my phone, that's for sure. Zoom, the same thing, right?  And then, you know, as we had talked about, during the pandemic, there's been so much reliability on technology, whether we were prepared for it or not. And I'm curious, John, if you would be willing to share with us, you know, how we can continue to, I don't know, assess our tech goals because there's always new versions coming up. Right. And that speaks to something that we'll address a little more in depth later on too. And that's the idea of life cycle management. We do, your technology is always changing. The business, the organization from a business perspective always has to change too, no matter what it is that you're doing, whether it's fundraising or looking for volunteers or teaching children how to read, you know, whatever it is that you're doing, you always have to adapt to the climate. And the technology that you have also has to adapt to your climate, not you to its climate. So you want to constantly ask, is this still doing what I needed to do and is that what we as an organization need to be doing to move towards our organizational goals too? So if you frame it through the lens of, is this technology helping me get to the end goal of our organization or fulfill our mission? That's where you begin that question. You know, and I appreciate that you said from the get go, be aware that this is changing. And because of the frustration aspect, I think for a lot of people that are like, we thought this would solve everything. We thought this would be, you know, one and done. And it's, if you can step back and say, no, this is going to be evolutionary in a good way, then I think it kind of changes some of that frustration. Now I want to ask you a little bit about the human first approach because we're talking about technology and then all of a sudden you're like, throw in this piece of the recipe and it's like, human. Okay, how do we get to these, how do we align these things? Right. So we start with people, we end with tech. And I think a phrase that a colleague of mine likes to use a lot is technology last. And that's our organizational mode of is technology last. And it sounds funny when you hear that coming from a technology company, but it sort of goes back to what I said earlier. If the technology isn't enabling the people behind it, if the technology isn't helping bolster what they're doing, then it's not doing its job. It's meant to enable. That's how it's supposed to fulfill our lives. We can't ask Microsoft to stop releasing updates to their applications, but we can anticipate and know that they're going to be updates and respond accordingly. So we can control our own behavior. We can't control everybody else's. Okay, that's pretty easy to get your head around. And what I mean by technology is meant to enable is you shouldn't be beholden to your tech. You shouldn't have to bend over backwards to be able to send a document to be signed because the technology that you have requires that. Well, it's time to ask at that point, is this the right tech for us? And sometimes the answer isn't technical. I have yet to get anybody to admit that they want to show up to work and do a bad job. I asked that question a lot. Would you like to show up to work and do a terrible job? Well, no, nobody ever says yes to that. And I don't think that generally people want to do that. I think most people that work in this area, they care. They do this because they care. I also haven't met anybody that has told me that they're into non-profit service because it's a huge income generator, right? So, and at the end of the day, most people really don't even care about what it is that they have to use to get their job done. They'll use the laptop that you give them. If it's not working, they'll start to do what internally we refer to as shadow IT where we'll start bringing in their own solutions to get the job done because people are creative. And when people care and they're smart and they're creative, they solve problems. We're human beings. That's what we're good at. And so they're going to do that for you too. So the idea is that we understand the people and we understand their processes and their needs and then we find technology that meets those needs and meets them where they are. And we understand too that the solution that we propose today isn't the end all be all solution for the rest of the year, the rest of the organization's lifetime. We're going to revisit it and we're gonna build that into the process too. So we like to do the design thinking, design workshop style of engagements where we talk to the staff that use these things. When I do discoveries, I always talk to managers and executives and stakeholders but I also talk to the people that have to use this thing day to day because I too have been on both sides of that. And I know what having technology that's frustrating and trying to get your work done is like. So we consider that because there's always people on the other end of this tech, there's always somebody on the other end of that email or that phone call and they have lives and they have good days and bad days and we don't need to add to their frustrations. I love that you brought up the design thinking. That's when I was clapping because that is such a, I love the process of design thinking and really having that ability to be in that incubator of all options are viable at this point, all options are viable. Let's really consider what that might be. I believe we even talked about before really, in this great resignation, technology is even coming up in the interview process or in the negotiation process talking about, okay, here's my job, here's the responsibilities and what systems are currently in place to support me so that I don't show up and do a bad job every day. Have you seen that more and more? Have you seen that question maybe coming up more and more during this great resignation time? Yeah, definitely. There's a lot more consideration given to that kind of thing and it's interesting. One of the questions that people are starting to ask is what training opportunities do you provide and what technology do you support remote work? Of course, it's a big question, big surprise there, right? And a lot of times the follow-on to that question is, okay, well, do you support full-time remote work or does it require some in and out of the office? Are you gonna provide equipment to me or do I have to provide the equipment? And coming from a background in IT security as well, I also am always thinking about, okay, do I really want that person bringing their own equipment into the organization? That's a question that you have to ask organizationally. So, yes, laptops cost money, yes, hardware cost money, but you know what? Breaches cost a lot more and employee dissatisfaction costs a whole lot more too. I love that you said that and I think we need to have you back and have another really significant discussion around that issue. But Jared and I, every Friday we do the ask and answer show and it's really an interesting thing. And we've had questions, a lot of questions about this issue, you know. My technology is not working. So I wanna buy my own laptop, but how do I get that reimbursed or should I? We get that now. And I think it's exactly for what you said, it's because folks are having to work from home, they're having to use their technology. They can't get up and go ask a question or talk to somebody at the water cooler. They have to engage with that technology. And if they can't even make that work or function, productivity and frustration just goes out the roof. Yeah. And even more than the technical side of it, one of the biggest challenges in the pandemic and in the subsequent resignation is that loss of connection with your coworkers. And that's one of the hardest things for technology to accommodate. Technology can't make connections for you as no matter how much networking or how great your Wi-Fi is, you still have to make human connections with people and doing that over video calls and phone calls, especially when you've never actually met people in person, so challenging. So you have to be really creative in how you implement these technologies and how you continue to use them. And it's not enough to just pick something that works anymore. Yeah. Well, talk to us about that adoption. So once you pick something, right? Now, how do we take that into adoption implementation? What does that look like? Sure. So I just said that once we select a technology, if somebody's working remote, if they're in the office, it doesn't even matter that the truth is, and this is where we go back to that design thinking idea too, is that if you don't get input from the people that use this technology, if you don't get buy-in and investment from those people, it is never going to succeed. And it doesn't matter how much it costs or how well it's implemented without buy-in from the people using it, it's never going to work. You can't train people to care, but you can incentivize them. And the way that you incentivize them is you bring them into the decision. You have them, you let them have a voice. You let their input be heard. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you're always going to go with whatever their choice is, but letting them know that they've been heard and that you are thinking about their concerns and the way that they do their work really goes a long way with people. And it also, the adoption piece is actually what kicks off the entire process. When I talk about lifecycle, lifecycle actually begins and ends with adoption because we want to start thinking about the communications that we're going to have with people, the engagements that we're going to have with people all throughout the deployment of this technology, whether it's revamping something we already have or implementing something new. We always want to be thinking about what does it mean to this audience and what kind of different audiences do we have? And how do we make sure that we're addressing their concerns and their needs? And the answer to that is, well, you have to ask them because you can't just assume you already know what people's interests, needs, or challenges are. So that's the reason that I like to talk to people that actually do the work in addition to the managers and the stakeholders and whoever is running the project. Because those are the people that are on the ground touching that stuff every day. And they usually have some better insight as to what frustrates them. Yeah. While that's true, I want to push back a little bit and ask a different question. And that is that you only know what you know. So let's say you're super educated in social work and you know how to deal with your clients and you know how to engage and work through these problems. But maybe you don't know you're not super savvy or confident with the technology. How and why do you get that voice in and make that part of the discussion? So that's a huge piece of adoption. And that's a huge part of why implementations fail is because you don't, if I as a technical implementer don't account for the fact that there are people that don't understand that technology or that don't have exposure to it. Or if I rely on my own life experiences then it's doomed to failure. I have to understand that there are people out there that have different experiences, different level of expertise than I do and that other people in the organization have. It's an industry term for it is the curse of knowledge. You're right. You don't know, you don't know. That's usually when you start to figure things out is when you realize there's a lot you still don't know no matter how deep your expertise might go. So one of the biggest challenges that I've run into through all of this is remembering that there are other people with completely different experiences out there that we need to speak to as well. So we have to engage with them and we have to talk to them. And sometimes when you're talking about the people that are your constituents or they're outside of your organization that can be a little more challenging and you have to get creative and do something beyond just taking a survey out there. But you find ways to get those answers. Like I said, we're human beings. We're good at solving problems. We're good at coming up with creative solutions and a lot of people and especially a lot of nonprofits wind up with technology challenges because they have really creative people that solve immediate problems.  So I try to help them understand what might be coming down the road and when we should be taking another look at these solutions.  If something breaks, you replace it. Well, your technology has to be the same way. You have to make sure it's still meeting the need of whatever your need might be. Sorry, Julia, I think that is fascinating. And I also know depending on the size of an organization nonprofits are really creative with using a workforce of volunteers, right? And so I remember and in fact, I know several clients that have really engaged, I'm gonna say more of the required workforce as volunteers that have really been resistant towards technology. Even something as simple as like, the Google office suite is really difficult for some individuals. But then I also know that there's been organizations that have utilized volunteers also in some of the data management or the volunteer management. And so there's different skill sets and different that curse of knowledge, I guess, is really at different levels within the organization.  Like this is where we are now, but where is it that we're going and how are we growing towards that way? Because that might mean that these volunteers that were previously using the systems are no longer accessing the systems. Right, and we try to start with the people and the processes more than we do anything else because you should be able to do this work, at least in theory without the technology in place. That's how you make sure that the tech is supporting you and enabling you and not just acting as something else that you have to do where it's another box that has to be ticked. You should be able to essentially perform whatever this function is without any of that stuff, but you got to be able to do it with pencil and paper first. And once we've gotten to that point and we understand that usually surfaces the real challenges that people have. And this sort of goes back to most of the time, the challenges aren't even technical challenges. They're process or communication or people challenges first. And that's what we try to highlight and resolve. And then we bring the technology and so that's why it becomes technology lasting people first. Wow. I love it. I love it. It's really hard to believe because our time is almost up. One thing I've been thinking about as we've been chatting here today, and I know this is like a big question, but is there like a general rule that says that technology is gonna change every so often so be prepared with those goals to know that if you make an investment in XYZ software, 12 months, 18 months, three weeks, I don't know. I think it's dangerous, Julia. Seriously. I mean, what does that look like? So you can kind of put that into your whole planning module. Yeah. So depending on the scope of the suite of tools that you have to use, that answer can change. I think if you're gonna have sort of a generalization, it's that you just need to be aware that it has to be done. You'll find the right cadence for your organization. You'll find the right cadence for you personally or your group of folks, but it's hard for me to prescribe a value to that. It depends on what you're using, how often you use it, et cetera. You'll know when the time comes because you'll start to ask those questions. As soon as it starts to become, this is how we've always done it or why do I wanna change? Because it's working. That's your first indicator. That's the first red flag. Interesting. Yeah. And I think just building in, I know that within the first year, I have to look at the system again. How often do you look at your financials? It varies. There isn't a scripted answer to that. It's you feel it and you know it. You just have to stop ignoring it. And your people, if you have staff or coworkers that you work with, oftentimes they'll tell you too, even if they don't tell you directly. They'll start to say, every time I go to do X, Y, Z, this happens. Okay, that's when your ears should perk up and go, okay, I think we might have something going on here that we need to look at. We need to think about this. I'm loving it. I'm curious, is there like on average, an individual person or organization uses, fill-in-the-blank kind of like technology systems? I'm thinking platform systems. I don't know. Do you have, and does, you know, a generic impact have an idea of how many systems or technology systems are used by an individual daily? Yeah, I think that on average, even the smallest organizations that we work with have at least four or five different suites of tools that they have to work with. And usually in a smaller organization, you'll find more tools that, you'll find a tool that does more things. So you might get a Microsoft 365 that has a whole platform behind it and does all kinds of things. That's a whole box full of tools that we can even begin to unpack, but we only use the office side of it and maybe teams. Well, really you're actually probably using about seven or eight different tools that you don't realize that you're using. A lot of folks have a CRM of some sort. So, you know, any of those, that they always come with a level of complexity. Anytime you're dealing with a group of people that you have to manage contacts and databases and those sorts of things, there's at least three to five suites of software that you end up using.  And they all have different logins and passwords and that's a whole nother episode. That's another episode. They do. And I could really talk about that for a long time, but to that I will say there are a number of platforms that do integrations and the biggest thing that you can do for any of them to give yourself a leg up is if they offer multi-factor authentication, turn it on. Okay, great advice. Great advice. Well, this has been a great way to start our week. John Bain, Director of Platform Technology with Generate Impact. We're thrilled that you would join us. And I have to admit, I'm thrilled that you could talk to us. Yeah, absolutely. It was my pleasure. It was great. Thank you for inviting me on. It's been absolutely wonderful to talk to you and have the opportunity to speak to this stuff. It's good to get somebody to listen. I think from today's episode, we've already like, you know, parsed out at least three to four, maybe even five new topics that we could definitely dive deeper into. So thank you for sharing your time and we are so grateful. Julia Patrick, thanks for being here with me and starting out our Monday. We always celebrate Friday, but I think we should also celebrate the start of a week too. I'm Jarrett Ransom, the nonprofit nerd. We also wanna say thank you, thank you, thank you to our presenting sponsors, including our guests today, Generate Impact. So thank you to each and every one of you for continuing these conversations. You know, we thought we would run out of topics. We thought we would run out of episodes and we just continue to navigate right alongside with all of our nonprofit friends and leaders across the globe. So thank you to our sponsors for allowing these conversations to happen. Absolutely, and as we end every episode, we want to remind you, and we wanna remind ourselves, I think, to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Hey, John, you got me sparked up for the day. Thank you.


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How come my name's on this What's good Josh boy Ross back again with another video, so I'm gonna check out I don't have to listen to these wild Allegations by promo Joe should be a good one shout out to promo Joe man for always dropping the dope Wrestling related content man. We're gonna get right into this one man I've seen a few you guys hit me up on Twitter for me to check this out So I'm definitely gonna do that for you guys appreciate all of them support you guys shown on the channel Make sure we do everything we can to prevent it AEW has the best safety record I believe of any pro wrestling company in the whole boy.  If you were one of the rocks movies, you would probably be Baywatch Thankfully, I've never seen Baywatch.  Oh boy Critics had their venom and knives ready fans loved the movie huge positive scores big disconnect with critics and people Rock is poking fun at the negative reviews of Baywatch because he knows fans love the movie Only for years later to be be one of the people poking fun at the same His movie, you know that he was a part of What Classic song right here He did a few different there Oh I knew this was gonna come up at some point people have been doing a little clips like this man I mean, it's it's kind of poetic in a weird way that the rock may end up taking Cody Rose main event spot, so That's that's that's funny man He did get launched with that like they were holding the middle rope, I believe one of the ropes I think it was the middle rope and he got launched. They, you know, kind of timed it where he jumped and they added a little momentum He got launched. Jesus. That was crazy When I saw that clip I was like, I wonder if he's gonna do it and he did it once again, thank you promo Joe Table didn't break the spot. I mean it would have been better if it actually did break But if he actually really went through the table, but it didn't break So it didn't have that impact like I think a lot of people wanted, but you know, it is what it is I am the table I see this one didn't look good. It happens man went between the ropes. He shouldn't have been eliminated. I Guess I mean I get it. He's trying to salvage the spot He should have went back in and then they did it again. He went between the ropes. He shouldn't have been eliminated How come my name's on this Dark side of the road That was great that was funny that was legit funny Oh my to combat to prevent issues like sexual harassment in the A. W locker room both, you know in the past and That was this was great, this is fantastic Why is my name on the list? Oh Man they may end up making a dark side of the ring episode featuring Chris Jericho Man, this was great once again promo Joe you're man. You're fantastic I appreciate you for always finding a way to Sneak me into a video here and there. I really do appreciate that and this was a pretty good one Comment down below. Let me know your favorite part of this video. I appreciate all of them support you guys shown on channel roto 150k And I'm still gonna speak to you to rest and jump the world. Appreciate y'all kicking you me. See you next one


It's an internationally recognized civil society human rights tribunal that functions independently of state authorities. It applies internationally recognized human rights law and policy to cases that are brought before it. The PPT is a descendant of the 1967 Bertrand Russell, John Paul Sartre, Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal and adheres cases in which prima facie evidence suggests abridgment of basic rights of ordinary people. The PPT sessions are virtually identical to courtroom proceedings in which a class of complainants brings an action against a government, a private party, or a private party and asks that they be judged against legal standards. The importance and strength of decisions by the PPT rests on the moral weight of the causes and arguments to which they give credibility. The goal of the PPT sessions is recovering the authority of the peoples when the states and the international bodies failed to protect the rights of them. And so this year it's been in progress for three years now since 2015. The permanent peoples tribunal has been planning this proceeding, focusing on fracking and climate change. It's the first time ever the international body has examined evidence of this kind. And I've called everyone here today because you are the experts. You have direct experience living with fracking and fighting against the companies to protect your land and your water. And Vermont is the first state in the country to ban fracking and the disposal of the wastewater within its boundaries. And I thought that it was important that the judges hear your stories directly from you. And so thank you so much for coming and agreeing to be a part of this process. One of the things that I wrote about in my brief on human rights, I just wanted to go over to help frame things a little bit, was from this Indigenous human rights attorney that I've met last year, last July named Sherri Mitchell. She has written this book called Sacred Instructions and she is talking about human rights and agreements and what we need to do to move forward. I'm going to start in the middle of rights and responsibilities. My tribal stories have taught me that our inherent rights are derived from our first treaty or agreement, the agreement we made with the creator when we first emerged in this world. This agreement was formulated under the balanced laws of creation and it provides us with the foundational authority for all the rights that we stand on today. Under this agreement we have the right to live unencumbered on this land with full access to the sources of our survival such as food, water and shelter, as long as we uphold our responsibility to live in balanced harmony with the rest of creation. We understand that these rights are not self-evident or self-generating. They are strengthened or weakened by the degree of responsibility we take to uphold our agreement. If we want evidence of this truth we only have to look at the unchecked destruction of the natural world that is being caused by capitalist greed. The failure of industry to take responsibility for the well-being of the natural world and other human beings and our complacency and complicity and the destruction that has resulted are quickly taking away our right to live on this planet. If we hope to live in a society where rights are valued then we have to be willing to adopt an ethical stance toward our inherent responsibility as human beings. We must be willing to do more than make a demand. We must be willing to actively work to create a world where that demand can be met. We cannot claim a right to clean water without taking responsibility for actively protecting the water from contamination and overuse. We cannot claim a right to clean air without taking responsibility for the creation of healthy and sustainable energy sources. We cannot claim a right to a more equitable economy without taking responsibility for where and how we spend our money. We cannot claim a right to ethical leadership without taking responsibility for voting in candidates that we believe in rather than those we believe can win. We cannot claim a right to life without taking responsibility for the lives that have already been created. And we cannot claim a right to peace without taking responsibility for cultivating peace within ourselves and in our relationships with others, even those we oppose. When we demand something for ourselves that we are not willing to ensure for others, our demand loses all of its power. We cannot take responsibility for the condition of our lives and the lives of those around us. We relinquish the power to chart our own course and the course of humanity. We also surrender our ability to create meaningful change. However, if we begin to take even small steps toward accepting the responsibility needed to balance our demands, we immediately and tangibly change the world around us. So I read that because I think that today everyone here is showing up and taking responsibility for what they know and claiming some power. And I thought it would be a good way to open the testimony and encourage folks to tell the truth. So this is the native waters of this place that's in the bowl here. And this is a tool I use for earth healing. And so I just wanted to get us all connecting in for a moment before we begin to talk to just tap in with our hearts, to tap in with our roots into this land and into this water. And just to send our greetings and our intentions to continue to act with responsibility to speak truth in service to the land, to the water, to the air. We are here on the sacred indigenous lands of the Abenaki. We honor the history that is this place, the ancestors of this place, both human and other, all beings. May they live in harmony here. May they be protected. May they be safe. May they be respected. We know that we are all connected through the web. May our words be true. Blessed be. Good morning. My name is Brian Tokar. I'm a lecturer in environmental studies at the University of Vermont. Board member of 350 Vermont and the Institute for Social Ecology and the author and editor of several books. Most recently, this one, which is called Toward Climate Justice, Perspectives on the Climate Crisis and Social Change, which first came out in 2010 and was substantially revised and expanded in 2014. We're gathered today in a really important place. This is Japrags Community Park in the town of Hinesburg, Vermont, about a half hour from Burlington. The events around Japrags Park were the apex of a four or five year campaign, still ongoing to stop the construction of a new gas pipeline to transport fracked gas from Canada down the western side of Vermont. At the same time that Vermont has banned fracking for gas or oil in state, we're continuing to import large quantities of gas and the gas company, which is Canadian-owned, had planned on continuing to expand this pipeline pretty far south to connect up with all the infrastructure that would allow it to eventually transport fracked gas from the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania and Ohio through Vermont to Canada. The campaign at this point has not succeeded in stopping the first leg of the pipeline, but a portion that was supposed to go underneath Lake Champlain to fuel a huge paper mill was stopped and we believe that we've set things in motion that may eventually shut down this pipeline. We'll be hearing a lot more about that this morning and certainly prevent the gas company from extending this pipeline any further. The campaign against the pipeline here in Vermont has also inspired a statewide campaign calling for no new fossil fuel infrastructure in the state of Vermont and in early March on our annual Town Meeting Day, 36 towns all across Vermont passed resolutions calling for an end to the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure and work toward alternatives. These campaigns have in many ways been inspired by the themes of climate justice that are very much resonant with the human rights principles that are central to this tribunal. The climate justice movement, of course, highlights the disproportionate impacts of climate changes on those people around the world who are least responsible for the problem of excess emissions. It brings forward the leadership of the frontline communities that are most affected and also embodies an understanding that the institutions responsible for abuses of the environment like fracking and all of the other causes of climate change are the same institutions that are responsible for a wide array of other social and economic injustices that we face. So we believe that climate change is fundamentally a human rights issue. This movement is also focused on an understanding of moving toward solutions to the climate problem that go beyond the realm of the technical that really embrace a different outlook on how we want to organize our lives, how we want to organize our communities. Here in Vermont we have many models of people living very well at much lower levels of consumption than are considered the norm in the U.S. and throughout the industrialized world. And we continue to focus on community-based solutions to allow us to live better on this earth to challenge the institutions responsible for various abuses and really look toward a very different kind of future. My name is Rachel Smoker and I'm a resident here in Hinesburg. And a couple of years ago I got involved in fighting this pipeline that's going through the state of Vermont because it was coming through this beautiful park, which is our only public park in the town. This land was granted to the town by Dora Jeprags, who was a resident here for a long time. And in the deed of transfer it was specified that the park would be used only for educational, recreational purposes or for school. And when Vermont gas came along and said they wanted to build a pipeline through the middle of this park they created a lot of divisions in the town and those divisions are still festering and haven't fully been healed. We took it to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court ruled against us and the pipeline is now installed over behind me in the distance there. When we sort of got to the end point with the Supreme Court we didn't feel we were done fighting this pipeline because we know that this pipeline has at least a 50 year lifespan or so and we figured if we could stop it even tomorrow or a year from now or 10 years from now or even 20 years from now we would still be coming out way ahead. We spent a lot of time researching and watching how the construction was being done and the more we learned about pipeline engineering and how the contracting crew was working and seeing what was going on we realized this pipeline was being slapped dashed into the ground as hastily as possible and with just reckless disregard for our environment and our safety. And we did many many public records requests and ultimately we went to the federal regulating body the PINSA we said you need to look into this the state is not doing their job of oversight this is a danger to our communities. I started out with this being a climate activist for a long time and I was concerned about fracking and I was concerned about the pipeline from the perspective of the impacts of methane leaking from infrastructure but after learning and watching how the pipeline itself was constructed my concerns now are more for the safety of people who live along the pipeline route because we know that for example they put the pipeline into the trenches that they dug into shallow in some locations they didn't put the proper select backfill and padding around the pipeline in some places they didn't compact the padding around the pipeline safely the way they're supposed to in some places we know that they didn't install trench breakers that were meant to prevent water from leaking out where they crossed streams and around the edges of wetlands we know that they were lacking a quality assurance program through much of the construction of the pipeline there was regulations that the federal authorities required which are considered minimum standards and then the state had requested a lot of improvements upon that through a certificate of public good in our Act 248 process and the company came and told the state they were going to do all sorts of things to ensure that this went far above the minimum federal standards but nobody came out and enforced and looked and watched to see what they were doing and ensure that they actually followed the agreements that they had made with the people of Vermont and so now after very hastily getting the pipeline into the ground turning on the gas flow telling everybody yo we're providing cheap affordable clean gas for all you eager customers out there we are saddled with this very very dangerous pipeline I'm Lisa Barrett and I live in Huntington, Vermont and for just the last two years I have been deeply involved in this effort to stop the Vermont gas fracked gas pipeline in Vermont and looking at it from the point of view of human rights seems to me there's a human right to clean water there's a human right not to be subjected to human made earthquakes and there is a human right not to be killed for something as insubstantial as corporate greed I first got involved in this fight thinking that fracking was a terrible thing and it was incredibly hypocritical that this state that has banned fracking would allow a fracked gas pipeline and that the state would embrace a the state government would embrace a fracked gas pipeline I also first became involved because I was aware that in 2015 there was a heat wave in Pakistan and India that was definitely caused by our climate emergency and that heat wave killed at least 2,500 people and there is no doubt that that was caused by our climate change emergency now 2,500 people that's pretty close to the number of people who were killed on 9-11 when people were killed on 9-11 this country pulled out all the stops started spending billions of dollars killed people in the Middle East and to make us jump through security hoops every time we wanted to do something but 2,500 people dying in Pakistan and India because of a heat wave that brought the temperatures to 130 degrees has not caused us to do anything to stop fracking to stop fossil fuel infrastructure and the hypocrisy of that is overwhelming to me people have a right to live without fear and too many people in our little state of Vermont who live along the pipeline route are living in fear and they're living in well founded fear what causes them to be living in the incineration zone of a compressed gas pipeline it's corrosion that causes most of the explosions we haven't had any explosions in Vermont the pipeline is brand new but we have gas under pressure 600 pounds per square inch we have pipe lying on the soil that has rocks in it that can rub holes in it we have pipe with joints that may not be properly sealed and we have pipes that are running miles under high voltage electric transmission lines and that electricity can be conducted by the pipeline and the cathodic protection and other methods that are used to protect the pipeline from carrying that electricity are not working I'm one of the people, the small group of people who has poured over thousands of pages of documents to see how this pipeline was built and this pipeline has been built with a risk here and a risk there and a risk in another place and when you add up all those risks it is terrifying for people who live near this pipeline we have to stop fracking and we have to stop fossil fuel infrastructure and we have to keep people from having to live in fear from a gas pipeline my name is Nathan Palmer I own Laughing Tree Farm in Moncton, Vermont I'm one of the landowners that has been directly impacted by this pipeline and when they decided to lay this pipe it was in 2012 and they made a chart for the original route that was like so offensive to everyone that was along it so in the process of calming down some of the people they re-rooted the pipeline and that's when it came directly across our farm my immediate response was what's this going to do to my soil what's this going to do to my water I called a hydrogeologist and asked him what's this going to do to my water and he came over and did an investigation I called an agronomist at UVM and said what's this going to do to my soil and he said am I just freaking out here she said well send me the information on how they're going to build this and I'll take a look at it because you are kind of an excitable guy maybe you are getting too excited I sent her the information she came back with a report and said if they do this construction the way they say they're going to do it it will be 20 years at least for your soil to recover because I have heavy clay soil and even though I'm not organic farm I farm organically and there's just no way that the soil would be able to recover the hydrogeologist said the same thing this is heavy clay soil you cut a 5 foot trench through this land you're going to change the water flow in many directions and none of them good so we took that to the testimony and presented it to the public service board and we were hoping that by able to bring this information to the board that they would adjust the way the pipeline was built across the entire length of it instead they adjusted how they were going to deal with our particular farm as if our land was special and no other land is special all land is special all water is special what I really have a problem with here is that we're sacrificing our water for fuel and that is a terrible situation to put society to put anyone in where you have to make a choice between whether you're going to be able to drink or whether you're going to be able to drive your car because what happens is those that can afford to will drive their vehicles to heat their houses and drink their water and those who are unlimited income are the ones who are going to have to decide do I buy a gallon of water or do I buy a gallon of fuel to keep my house warm you know it sounds kind of like out there a little bit but the reality is that water is precious and we don't value it the way that we should you know it's like a commodity that we can get rid of real easily and we can come up with real easily and it's obviously getting harder and harder you can take that water and you can reclaim it but you can reuse it for fracking but you'll never be able to drink it you'll never be able to feed your animals with it you'll never be able to sustain a life with it and that's really what it comes down to are we going to have a livable planet where people can live on and enjoy their life or are we going to have a place that's run by people that have a big pile of money in their bank accounts and the rest of us are just going to have to fend for it the best of way we can you know I was really hoping that after the pipe was built I could put this to bed and not have to deal with it anymore but the reality is that it was built in a way that's so slip-shot you don't even want to live there you know they told me when they first were going to put this pipe through it's like once we put this pipe through you'll forget it's there if you forget it's there that's where you're going to have trouble and it's going to get really serious I'm Earl Hatley I'm the Grand River Keeper I'm the Grand River Watershed my organization is lead agency I'm Chikamagwa Cherokee I belong to the Long Hair Clan Fracking started in Oklahoma around 2007 Oklahoma was lied to about what was causing the increasing earthquakes over time in 2013 the earthquakes began increasing tremendously I had been fighting TransCanada and the Army Corps of Engineers who were building the Keystone XL Pipeline Southern Leg from Cushing, Oklahoma to the Gulf so I really couldn't turn to that at that point in time the Keystone XL Southern Leg was going to send tar sands and fracked oil from the Balkan region up in North Dakota and they had been sending it down to Cushing another way through a TransCanada spur from Nebraska to Cushing Cushing is the largest terminal in North America and it's the crossroads for pipelines if you saw a pipeline map in Cushing a plate of spaghetti would look more organized I mean it's massive and so is the terminal park and right now about half of it is now in bridge TransCanada had a good part of it at one point in time when they were building the pipeline so in 2014 I got a letter from Devin Energy they wanted to come on to my property that I still own in Payne County where most of the earthquakes were occurring and explore for gas or for oil and I threw the letter away and then a couple weeks later I got another letter saying I didn't respond to the first letter and so I looked it up and found that they could come on to my property anyway so I wrote them and then I called them and I told them I didn't want any part of it and they weren't welcome to come on to my property and they said well we'll work around you and I said well I don't think my neighbors want you either about three weeks later I got another letter giving me ten days to respond to they were going to go to court and get authorization to come on to my land anyway I organized citizens groups and a statewide group and Stillwater, Oklahoma which is the capital seat of Payne County passed ordinances for oil and gas within the city limits which in effect keeps them out of the city limits of Stillwater and they passed that two weeks after the state legislature passed a law saying the cities couldn't do that and they'd been threatened in lawsuits but nobody's done anything so their ordinances stand and so they were really proud of them I can't come on to my property anymore because I now have eight frack wells in my square mile in my section and a disposal well a mile and a half away and I have an autoimmune disease so when I go to my property within five minutes I start getting headaches and I start getting sick and the longer I stand there the sicker I get and it takes me about three weeks to recover when I go back home where I live in 2016 we had 10,000 earthquakes maybe more than that and the USGS is saying that even if they stop now we're still going to have a 6.5 or even larger in our future probably several of them because of all the faults that they've awakened now and some of our people that called in to the corporation commission about their homes being destroyed were told well you shouldn't you should be proud because you're contributing to our independence on oil and boys won't have to go to the Middle East to fight you know so that's your sacrifice most people don't have earthquake insurance because we're not an earthquake state so their homes didn't come with earthquake insurance and the few that did the insurance companies won't insure homes that are damaged by man-made earthquakes you know people are stuck with damaged homes in the 14 counties where the earthquakes are happening where the fracking is happening and now fracking is coming back because the price of oil is high so they're just going down and widening roads and getting ready for huge infrastructure of boiling gas exploration in these counties and the earthquakes are going to be coming back big time now they're drilling more shallow wells to get at the oil this more shallow more groundwater is going to be contaminated thank you hi so I'm Fern Lickfield and I am here from the Green Mountain Druid School and community based in Worcester Vermont I teach a lot about how to be a steward and how to connect more deeply with the spirit of place you know before there were individual religions with different gods all of our ancestors if you've traced them back far enough come from a place of animism and this is just understanding that everything is alive and all life is sacred and that means that we are connected to everything else because the same spirit that animates the tree animates us and so when we remember this and I love the word remember it's about pulling all of our pieces back together and remembering that we're not on top of this evolutionary pyramid we're actually in a web and we are connected to everything so that means that everything that we do affects everything else and so it's very much about taking responsibility it's about understanding that the health of the human is deeply dependent on the health of the land and on the water and on the air and it means that also health is not just about this level of physical you know it's not just our bodies we know that as humans for us to feel healthy we have to pay attention not only to our physical health but to our mental health and our spiritual health and so we also look at that at the macrocosm level with the land and it really has a lot to do with slowing down enough to listen and to hear what the land and the waters need from us


We'd like today to give you some insight into the exciting dynamic of the program. I'll help you out with a few of the details that are involved and answer a few of the general questions plus some of the specific questions which you've raised with us. Firstly, just a bit of an overview. The program is a one-year, three-semester program. So it starts in June and finishes in the following May. It is full-time. It is impossible to work at the same time, even part-time. Well, you know, a little bit of support here and there, but definitely you need to be full-time devoted to the course. We have classes all times of the day. And then the other thing is that it's a group. You come as a class. You get to know your classmates. You do teamwork together and so on. It makes for a very comprehensive cohort experience in which you build a great network both with your current classmates and with people who've gone through the program before. You'll be in a class of approximately 130 to 140 students and that is the class on mass. There are some classes that are done all together, but mostly classes are broken up into smaller groups where you study specific things in detail. Over the three semesters, you start with a very detailed introduction and some of the learning of the technical skills with respect to real estate. That's important to get everyone on the same page regarding ability to analyze and evaluate and understand the challenges of real estate development. The second semester then becomes a little bit of a deeper dive looking into some of the things that you find are particularly of interest to you and that you hope to pursue in your career. At the same time, you're gathering more depth of knowledge about the core things that are involved in real estate across the board. And then in the third semester, what's very important is to pull together all of those things that you've been learning ranging from design, the urban planning, the construction issues, the legal issues, the way in which a project is actually responding to a market analysis and of course the financial analysis of the whole thing to make sure that it can be paid for and that it will produce a return on investment. So that's the third semester and we do a number of classes that involve comprehensive projects but most importantly, there's the capstone project which is like a final thesis. It's a project where you really prove to yourself and to everyone what you're capable of in terms of a whole real estate development proposal. So it's a deal book. It's really something that you're able to take out there and it feels very much like the things that they are seeing every day except that I promised yours will be better than what they're seeing most of the day. So that's generally how the program breaks down over the three semesters. It provides you with all of the various aspects that are comprehensive for real estate across the board ranging from development through to finance through to acquisitions to asset management and property management. What it also enables you to do of course as I say is tailor it specifically to your interest so that you're able to have some exceptional skills in a certain area that you're passionate about and you can go out and pursue that professionally. So that's the general overview. I'll start with answering some of the questions now. Of course people are always concerned about what is important in their application. Writing a good personal statement is very important. We do not have specific checkboxes of skill sets and so on. Real estate is one of those professional activities that incorporates a lot of different skills. So therefore it's really about what you are capable of as an individual in really solving problems because that's really what it is at the end of the day. So what I suggest you do with your personal statement and so on is give a good description of who you are. Talk about the trajectory of your life or how you wish it to be and your professional development and tell us really how you think what you'll learn in this program and your experience in this program will be part of that and will set you up to do that successfully. Really point out to us if you can what difference you want to make in the world and how doing this program is going to give you the skills, the approach, the background, the support and so on. You need to do it. So that's the way in which the personal statement forms I would say the core part of your application. In terms of the profile of the students and the types of prior experience you've had, it's very, very open. We have students coming from all sorts of backgrounds, finance, accounting, architecture, urban planning, communication, psychology. We even had someone who was an actor. So a really good range of people and that's what's important both for the, I believe, the real estate industry because it needs people coming with very interesting frames of reference and also I think it provides for the student body a wonderful combination of attitudes and perspectives and ways of dealing with the world. So we have students in all of those fields. We also, you know, people say I may be a little nontraditional in terms of having a lot of experience and wanting to pivot my career. That's absolutely possible with us. In fact, you know, we treat every application holistically. As I say, it's about where you are intending your professional trajectory to go and how this will help you attend to that no matter what you've done before. Hopefully some of what you have done before has created an ability to be mature about coping with professional situations, solve problems, be rigorous in your analysis and so on. So we're interested in, you know, also how you will fit within the program. It's not the experience of being altogether in a full-time program is really part of the learning experience. It's not just that it happens to be the case. So we're very interested in understanding what you will bring to the program as well as what you will get out of it. People ask about the GRE scores and, you know, the various technical requirements. We don't publish a minimum score requirement. It's not top of the list. The average score for admitted applicants tends to be within the 160, 161 for the verbal area and about 165 for the quantitative area. But once again it's put in as part of your whole package. Now the other thing about, of course, is your experience, your work experience, whether you've had too much, none, not enough, how much and so on. The average is about 18 months to two years of work experience, usually related somewhat to the real estate or the built environment. Some people have, as I say, a lot of experience and not in that field at all. Some people are coming straight from college. That's okay. It's not the usual, but just so that you know what is generally in the middle. But as I say, it's all about what you're planning your professional career to how you're planning it to unfold. So if you haven't had any experience in real estate for a significant amount of time, it is good to present some evidence of your ability to work in teams, to have been in areas of responsibility maybe during summer breaks and so on, some internship perhaps and so on that demonstrates that you've been in a work environment, you understand how that is all structured and you're indicating your ability to be serious about being a professional. The other thing is, you know, try and show that you've been involved in teamwork. It sounds like a bit of a cliche, but real estate is definitely one of those things that is not done alone. Whether you're hiring architects or you're hiring financiers, you are interacting with other people and being able to be part of the team and work constructively is a very important dynamic. Now some students, we would say that probably the typical age is around, the average age is around 28, but we have people younger than that and we have people significantly older than that. So the actual age, the actual quantum of work experience is not as critical, although do take it into consideration in guiding you as to when you might be best suited to attend the program. Just a couple of minor things. Some people ask if you're able to do some joint degrees or take courses in engineering or in other parts of the university, maybe combine it with an MBA. There are dual degrees, but only within the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation. Within this college, within this school, you're able to do a joint degree of the MSRED with either architecture, urban planning, preservation. What you will do is start a semester early in the summer in June with us and then you'll finish a semester later in the fall. But other than that, it's involved in the same program. Beyond our school, we're not able to offer joint degrees. You can of course enroll in some courses in other schools. Some of them will let you in, others may not, but certainly some people do tend to seek out some supplement courses here and there from other schools. We are not a STEM program and we don't accept any transfer credits from other programs and other schools. So that's probably about it in terms of general administrative questions that you've come through with. Just a little bit more about the Capstone project because it is a very important part of what you do. It's an individual project even though you do a lot of teamwork during the program and you even do some teamwork in leading up to your Capstone, in the end you produce something that is your individual production. Some of the, as I say, what you have to do is cover the whole of the aspects of joint development, everything from the site and what it's like and what the urban situation is through to what the market analysis is, what people wanting these days, do they want more apartments, do they want more office space and so on, through to what sort of construction is feasible, what are the building costs going to be, what is the timing of actually constructing and getting approval and then how are we going to finance it, how are you going to finance it during construction and then afterwards, how long are you going to own it for and then who are you going to put in it, are you going to be selling it as condos or putting in tenants and how do you market that. So it really is hopefully an inspiring piece of work, you get to be really creative but at the same time realistic and definitely very professional that's the objective. In the final semester also in the spring semester there's the opportunity to do the internship. Now that is for 20 hours a week, it is a registered class and it's overseen with your providing reports and specific achievements that you're to get and usually we have approximately about 40% of the class do a part-time internship in the spring semester. So that's how the the internship works. Someone said you know what is going to distinguish Columbia from the Columbia and Mesred program from other programs and that's my favorite topic of course because we really think that one where a fabulous full-time immersive experience where you not only learn rigorously and deeply but you also get to share attitudes and inquiries and explorations with your classmates you learn to become critical thinkers and to not take things for granted and to really think about how you're going to progress your career and also the built environment. We are located in New York City and you know what can beat that. Firstly we're able to go out and do events and look at things in New York City with respect to real estate. The other thing is the professors, many of the professors or pretty much most of the professors that you will be learning from are full-time working in New York so they're typically at the cutting edge of what's happening in their field, be it acquisitions or debt structuring or a law or construction or planning or architecture and so on. So that's very exciting to have these top-notch people come in and teach you. You are also able of course to be in touch with a lot of, well be in touch with a lot of alumni that are in New York and able to take part in various of our activities as well. So you really start to build your network with the alumni while you're here in the program. The other thing of course is that real estate I think is a very sort of holistic comprehensive, complex, messy type of activity. Who can define it? Developing a project, getting from a vacant site to a building that's out there making money for someone and housing other people and being an attractive site for other people and so on is a very very complex process. But we really go about it in a way that pulls all these pieces together and just isn't overly focused. We don't say one, there's only one thing that's important, that's finance or there's only one thing that's important, that's design. What we believe is that all of these things merge together to be comprehensively important. So our program really, really does that. All of the courses that you are required to take get everyone onto that same page about that comprehensive and holistic approach. We really think that the graduates of these programs come out very very well rounded and very very social. Truly the events that students put on here and the events that they follow up with once they've graduated and so on just shows them to be continuingly inquisitive and exploring and affable and fun loving. And we really like to see that and I think you get that feeling as soon as you start. But I'm going to let our students now, our current students help you out on some of these insights. So Lizzie, what do you think about that? Did you get the feeling from the beginning? Oh yeah, definitely. My experience in general in this program has been fantastic. It definitely started off with an intense summer and now that we're well into our second semester we are looking into internships and looking towards our careers which is fun to experience because we're meeting a lot of people in the field, a lot of alumni the network here is extremely tight and not just among the students who are in the program with us are cohort but also the alumni network which really opens up a lot of doors. So even within just a semester and a half you're already engaged really well with your alumni. Absolutely and a lot of our professors who are alumni as well they describe their years out of graduation and they describe having still such a close knit community with the people that they graduate with and kind of contacting each other whenever they have, they need more information or they need a partner or they need advice. Exactly, well you know you're always going to be asking someone, so what's the office vacancy in Minnesota right? And you're going to know someone who's there. And also the professors you come across must have been pretty exciting when you started, Steven? I agree, thanks Patrice. I would say that one of the questions you said is what really sets our program apart. And when I was making my decision there were a few things. One was it was a one year program. The other was that the faculty are mostly adjunct professors who are professionals in the field in New York every day. Some are entrepreneurs that run their own business, others work for them, and kind of being a sponge absorbing their knowledge and working with them and working on their projects and receiving feedback from them has actually been really rewarding. That's great. And now what about the dual degree and some of your classmates who've been working with this? How do you think they're managing? Sure, we actually have quite a few dual degree students. Most of them are in the masters of architecture program as well. It is an intense program but it's interesting to see their pursue especially as their coursework is kind of staggered so that they can manage the workload over the I think it's like a three year time. Three and a half year. And actually it's quite nice to have dual degrees as well as single degrees students in the program because a lot of our projects are kind of mini capstone projects where we work with different groups and so having kind of the architecture knowledge as well as then also having people from various different backgrounds, people who are brokers, people who've worked in debt and you have so many different people coming together and it really creates a holistic view of real estate development. If I could actually just add on to that. I would say that I noticed in a lot of the questions it was asking things like do architects struggle? Do finance people struggle? And I would say that one of the things I've actually enjoyed the most about our large group is getting to know everyone and the diversity of backgrounds, the backgrounds you had mentioned as well as the large number of foreign students we have and people who are from all different geographies of the United States North America and being able to work with everyone and kind of combining and meshing all those different perspectives to achieve our group projects has actually been it's interesting here especially coming from a CPA background and hearing from my friends who are architects or construction folks and they just bring an insight that I never had before. That's right so you're up against people with real skill set that's totally foreign to you and now you're going to learn about it and so on and the pain is really shared right? It's not as though someone coming in from finance doesn't need to really work hard to understand planning and zoning requirements and how to resolve design issues and what construction basics are about and so on and similarly people from the architectural side will pick up the finance concepts and some of our best students, some of our top students have come in as architects former architects and so on and put the time in that first semester and you just get very capable with excel and modeling it's a tool that you can use to be even more creative so it's definitely not something for people who don't have a finance background to be a friend of. Absolutely. For me personally I know one of the questions was what was the class that people most struggled with I would say for a good portion of the people finance one in the summer was definitely a very rigorous class kind of learning the basics of these sometimes complex concepts that now seem very basic to us for others it might have been the more development focused or kind of architecture focused classes architecture made more development than architecture but one thing that was really helpful is that we have great professors we have extra tutor sessions that are scheduled into the week weekly and then we also just have as we all mentioned such a great cohort of classmates that someone might be really good at this concept or teaching it and I might help them on that other more urban planning or architecture focused concept in a different class Absolutely, exactly and see people put their hand up for impromptu explanations of things which is really fabulous so on if a good group of the folks are struggling with latest finance concept then but someone knows it really well and has been working with it they just say I'll teach it in the café so it really works very well I think that's great. Some people who are thinking about coming and they make the decision and then they're preparing before starting in June and they say what sort of things could I read or complete or so on before I start the program and I think do read some interesting books about real estate, anything you like quite frankly, it's all informative and if you're not very capable mathematically with Excel modeling then do just try and start with some of the simple formats on that you certainly don't need to come in being able to build real estate models but some facility with financials calculations in Excel is probably pretty good and know your way around an Excel spreadsheet. What about other things do you think Stephen? You know another one is the course work is very interesting. There's some courses that are your traditional academic test driven courses but then a lot is presentation and project based and where I'm really strong in Excel every bit is weak in PowerPoint and so I would say to focus on areas like that.  If you don't have an architectural design background, sketch up is quite an easy little program to master and have fun with and you can do your own little illustrations and cartoons for your friends and family as well with that. I would say just kind of keeping up on current events in the real estate world is always a good way to prepare for the program with a basic knowledge and some good questions to ask. You are kind of going to be around professors who are at the cutting edge of a lot of real estate development so it's always good to kind of be in the know and then for me personally because I didn't have a finance background per se, I definitely looked at online courses. I think there's breaking into Wall Street, there's a couple other courses available online and I did spend a good amount of time kind of refining my Excel skills or even just build them up from the ground up and that will prove very valuable once you get here. That's actually a great point about the periodicals, get into the habit of checking the real deal and biz now commercial observer every morning because things change rapidly, especially in New York and the conversation comes up with our professors. That's right, the real deal is online, it is a very good course of real estate activities in North America, it's not just New York, but it's a great overview of everything from deal structuring to development issues and so on and a lot of good gossip too. And then Lizzie, you managed the online course called Breaking Into Wall Street and it is very good, I suggest you do the model that is on basic financial analysis, corporate analysis, not the one on real estate analysis because that is a template that's really probably not as great as you could get, but definitely if you do the Breaking Into Wall Street introduction to financial analysis, that modeling skill is a very competent program and really helps you step through things. So I do suggest that that's a good way of getting those involved. So we need also to talk about how focused the project, we've said how fantastic it is to be in New York, but we don't want to think that it's not, we're just New York centric and we don't care about anything else and what happens anywhere else, the program is full of people from all over the world and they're going to bring questions and things in those other parts of the world, so we can't be New York centric. On the other hand, there's a lot to learn in New York and a lot of things that unfold in other parts of the world are sort of started in New York or tried and tested in New York and so we do use New York zoning and New York urban planning and the U.S. financial structures and the U.S. to be the basically the framework with which you learn about all of those things in a way that's about their essential dynamics, not just with reference to New York. What do you think? Do you think plus we also have in the spring global trips, so you do get to study about and learn about doing cross-border or doing real estate in other parts of the world, so there's definitely that opportunity. Do you find that it's not to New York centric? I completely agree. I would say that most of, I think I probably taken 20 courses now across all the disciplines of real estate and most disciplines from construction to finance, architecture, those are universal disciplines. You know, more zoning, urban planning type of courses maybe geared more towards New York and oftentimes New York will be a case study but I think most of the concepts can be applied most places and I think you find, especially in something like an affordable housing class that Lizzie and I are taking right now affordable housing is probably so much more complex in New York than it is in most places that if you can do it here you can do it anywhere it probably gets easier. Yeah, I agree as well. I think in some of the classes or a good amount of the classes we do use New York as a laboratory but that's not to say that these concepts are not translatable to the US and the world we have students from all over the US and students from all over the world a very good amount so it's also very interesting to hear kind of the global perspective from our students as well as our professors because we do have a lot of global classes we do have these global trips we have students who have taken their own initiative to go on trips to Toronto or different places so there's definitely a global vibe I would say. Absolutely and a club that definitely has people from all over the place and explores their own and so on so I think it's just a lovely rich group of all different perspectives New York's just a good test case as you say a case study in which we can kick it around and see what's good and what's not so good in New York now a lot of people will be of course considering this as very relevant and core to their careers and have some questions about how the program is going to work in with your careers and getting a job and so on and the question is of course what programs are in place to assist students in finding employment upon graduation now we're an educational program we're not a placement centre and so on so we don't actually place students and we don't actually mediate in hiring because that's really beyond our capability but what we do have is a dedicated associate director who that's Rebecca and I think some of you have already been in touch with her and she's the career advisor to students and she is with you from the beginning from summer when you start right through to working with you on getting jobs so what she does is she meets one on one she helps you prepare your packages in terms of where you are thinking of going how you approach that area of the real estate industry what the network is you know and some of our alumni who are out there in that area you get to talk to and basically she'll help you give you advice, she'll give sessions quite a few sessions you've already had some I'm sure on how to present yourself with your resume properly how to do cover letters how to actually articulate your passion and your interests and what you intend to be contributing to a job or to the company that you join she you know teaches you how to put your package together I would say and present yourself accurately also she's very involved in with industry engagement so she's always meeting with those people and understanding what they're looking for and how they judge and assess potential candidates so you know she knows what those companies are looking for what's peculiar about what's interesting or unique about them and so on so she can give you feedback in that as well the type of projects that the type of jobs that people get right across the board we as I say we really believe that real estate is a very broad industry has fascinating aspects right across it but what you learn here is the core fundamental aspects that you can then take and hone to your interest at some point across that spectrum so therefore we have people who really go out and do very different things upon graduation including development some people do development globally other people do just investing globally other people have done structuring financial structuring workouts, asset management managing huge portfolios of properties all over the world and so on so we tend to have companies people from all of those areas we a recent alumni have been employed in related companies Tishmanspire, Oxford properties Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs Blackstone DDG Partners Alloy Development which is a firm of architect developers the absolute combination of architecture and development by the practitioners themselves RxR, Realty the Durst Corporation Heinz, Excel Development the CIM Group Kyrian Partners and so on so many many types additionally we we have quite a few students who wish to go into the public sector and my background has been back and forth between the public sector and the private sector and I really encourage that so we have very strong relations with a lot of public entities and graduates have found jobs with the New York City Economic Development Corporations, I have someone just getting a job over in San Francisco in one of the planning departments housing authorities all over the world School of Construction and then on some of the public development projects like the Brooklyn Navy Yard and things like that so we have basically great opportunities in all of those fields now do realize that real estate is a very cyclical industry so it is sometimes developments on sometimes developments way off and we have had a very upward particularly in America North America we've had a very booming economy for quite a while and a lot of development has occurred and probably the outlook is that there's not going to be so much development in the next few years as what we've currently done gets absorbed however there's always things to do in real estate and that is managing the existing assets very well to create really good value to reposition them to rethink how they're actually working operationally there's always going to be financial structuring and loans rolling over and all of that type of thing so there's always things to do but just do realize that you've got to be realistic regarding the real estate cycle and so how about you know Stephen your interest in your career and are you seeing that you're able to tailor this and work out how to best ready yourself? Absolutely so I really came here to the big four public accounting arena for a while and I'm looking to transition my career from the back of house back of office to more of the front of office development side and so you know just the experience that we're getting in the classroom and the introduction to certainly course loads that I've never seen before from architecture construction is kind of open my eyes just starting really the career now putting out applications for internships and seeing a lot of different opportunities whether they're development related or finance related I will say that I'm for someone with a finance and accounting background I'm trying to do a little bit something different I'm moving more towards development where I know we had a few people ask questions you know what do finance and accounting people usually do and I think the most important thing for me is to be able to take that role and that's a strong selling point but I'm feeling that in this program it's been good for me to take to retool and to transition and basically be able to make both those possibilities opportunities for myself. Absolutely because you know if you can work out how to finance construction projects and get those fabulous influence from your left. Exactly plus you build a lot of great buildings so and Lizzie how about you? So my background I studied architecture and undergrad since then I've kind of mostly had a career as a professional dancer actually but I've done consulting work in real estate development and I've also worked for the low line organization which is an organization in New York City. So kind of from this background I realized that my passion was not in architecture per se but more in kind of the multi-layered complex large scale development projects where you deal with public private partnerships and just those various different layers of policy and approvals and zoning and all those things that really get me going so I kind of came here with an interest in transit oriented development in infrastructure and public private partnerships and I've definitely I know there was also a question about that specifically and you know it's been great because I've you know since I've been here just through my professors and alumni network and the mentor that GSAP or the MSRI program set me up with I've been able to meet people from the MTA from the EDC from real-estate advisory firms that work in on the public and the private side I just did a site tour at Moynihan Station which is kind of an extension of Penn Station into the old US post office in Midtown, Manhattan and so I've met people from Economic Development excuse me the Empire State Development Corporation and so yeah that's where I'm hoping my career path will lead me. I think it's good you know you decide what you want to do what difference you want to make in the built environment and you know we help you prepare the skills to go out and make it happen I think that's you know that's really what we're able to pull together for you as you come through and you know students often come from we have a lot of students from foreign countries and you know some of them want to go a lot of them obviously want to go back some of them want some experience in New York and ask about how easy it is to get jobs in New York and in America post graduation it is going to be obviously more challenging particularly in the current sort of political environment but you know and that is what it is but you know I think if you get started early you understand that things like doing internships working even during the break over December between mid December and when you come back in January there's a good five weeks and I've had some great students do internships during that time which really set them up well for being able to demonstrate that they've got capability and they know how to be you know effective in an office and so on. So you know it's definitely a challenge but you do have a visa that allows you to do some work experience. The other thing is people ask what sort of housing is here there's a housing lottery that you can enter but it certainly isn't a guarantee so what about job career how people are looking at their careers and you know how they're settling into the city here in New York from other countries maybe we sort of will finish up with a few words on that. Sure so I know a lot of my classmates they have housing through the lottery or they secured housing privately in apartments usually on the Upper West side some in midtown and a lot of them are rooming together so they found each other had a good living relationship there I would say from a career perspective it's really interesting to get to know people and this is all part of the networking and getting to know the classmates is some of our overseas classmates want to stay in New York and others actually have family offices or family buildings or aspirations to go back home and do big projects there so it's an interesting mix it's a very diverse group but I feel like everyone really has an idea of what they want to do and they're following their ambitions which is great. And Lizzie are you seeing people sort of getting more information as they learn more about you know and sort of assessing and building what they want to do oh yeah absolutely that's for all of the students as I've gotten here I've refined what I want to do even more and you know for international students who I know many of I think a lot of them really take advantage of the networking opportunities and they kind of go out of their way to go to site visits go to office visits speak to professionals in the field sometimes they offer to help professionals in the field kind of just on the side just for their own learning experience and I know a lot of them are looking towards internships as we are too to kind of give us extra credentials for when we go out into the the job hunt in the summer. Very good anyway last few words your words of advice from being all of this you know few months in to prospective students why should they come you should come whether you are making a transition or you are trying to retool and improve yourself in the industry I will say the questions that were submitted were really interesting there were a lot of very common themes if you are concerned about a certain mold here at Columbia if you are not financial enough or you are not architectural enough don't worry about it it actually I think adds to the richness of the experience everyone's different background if you have an interest and a passion in real estate and you have an ambition or a dream that you want to follow come here immerse yourself in the program learn from these great professors and you will be better off for it Lizzie? Agreed I also saw that kind of and just to go off on that also as far as age we have so many people who have just graduated we have people who are well into their other careers who are looking to transition so there are people from all walks of life and it is just a great program I am super happy here frankly and glad to be here it's intense it's rigorous but in the best way you are going to learn so much so quickly great well thank you we do hope you will join us if you love the built environment if you love real estate if you love thinking about it creating it, building it, financing and so on we are here we are going to make sure that as a professional you are smart strong and socially responsible thank you look forward to seeing you


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If you could change it fit Would you? Cassidy Crichton I'm with the quickies congratulations on your amazing performance Just tell me about your names and what instrument or part you play in the band. So I'm Eric I play guitar and I sing some time I'm Wesley I play drums I'm Pharrose I play bass I'm Jacob and I play guitar You know why are you called the quickies? Well, the quickies is named after how fast we are in Moffat? What's the menu window? I would know. So who writes the songs? I Divine inspiration, if I'm understanding correctly, God speaks to you in your sleep. Well, we're gonna play a game now I'm just gonna be finished the lyric. Okay ready? It's like who look what? You made me do.   I guess Girls, I don't know the rest Somebody once told me the world was gonna roll me. I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed You guys are making album. How far along in that process is it? Oh, it's a still in concept The main songs are written.