Hi, welcome everyone to Emperor Norton in Black, San Francisco Empire Day Notes on San Francisco's Monarch of the Marginalized. Wait, I did that wrong. Welcome everyone to Emperor Norton in Black, San Francisco. A talk with John Lumia. My name is Taryn Edwards and I am one of the librarians here at the Mechanics Institute of San Francisco, which was a haunt of Emperor Norton's. For those of you unfamiliar with Mechanics, we are an independent membership organization that houses a wonderful library, the oldest in fact designed to serve the public in California, a cultural event center, and a world-renowned chess club that is the oldest in the nation. Right now due to the shelter in place, almost all of our activities are virtual, but I encourage you to consider becoming a member with us. It's only $120 a year and with that you help support our contribution to the literary and cultural world of the San Francisco Bay Area. Now we have a special speaker today, John Lumia, who is a writer, a historian, and the founder of the Emperor Norton Trust, which is a nonprofit that works to honor the life and advance the legacy of Joshua Abraham Norton. The trust's presence is a trove of material that shines a light on the real Norton's life. So if you're at all interested in going beyond the myth, I encourage you to take a look and I will put the link to that in the chat space. Meanwhile, John's work has appeared in several periodicals that you're familiar with, including the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED, Mother Jones, the Wall Street Journal, Medium, and the Los Angeles Times. Now, let me explain briefly how this talk will work. John has a lot of content to share with you, so we want to get going. But first let me say, and I think I've said this before, is that we're using the webinar format of Zoom, so it's perfectly normal that you can only see me and John. You're muted as well, but we would love to take your questions at the end of the talk. So please post them in the chat space, and we will get them at the end. All right, thank you for coming today, and thank you, John. Let's get started. All right. I'm sure, right. Let's do my thing. All right, we good? We're good. Well, I'm delighted to welcome everybody and to wish you a happy Empire Day. I think most of you who are here probably know what Empire Day is about, but I thought it would be good to start by saying just a couple of little words of context. The Emperor Norton Trust, which at that time was known as the Emperor's Bridge Campaign, in 2015 inaugurated this sort of annual holiday to mark the fact that September 17th, 1859 was the date on which then Joshua Norton sort of walked into the offices of the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin and handed the editor, George Fitch, a proclamation declaring himself Emperor of the United States. And let's see. Okay, I can't. There we go. So there's the proclamation. Heavily and impermanent, I'm not going to read the entire thing. It's interesting, you know, there's a, one of the more popular stories that goes around is that on this date, or before this date, that Josh Norton had disappeared from the city. He'd been gone for two or three years and he came back riding on a white steed to declare himself Emperor. It seems actually that the best evidence suggests that he actually was in center to school along. Living at that time in a boarding house at 255 Kearney between Broadway and Vallejo, sort of on the west side of that very sort of steep hill now known as the Peter Macchi-Renie steps. And so that's where he would have been coming from. And this is, this is the location today. This is a, this is sort of view of what we're doing sort of last year. If you see that sort of white SUV in the little box on the sidewalk adjacent to the building just to the right of the SUV, this is kind of a box of flowers and a sign sort of marking Empire Day last year. That is on Clay Street, just across Redwood Park, sort of next to next to the Trans-America Pyramid. So that's where the central office would have been. And then that's the floral tribute that we had last year. So usually when we start talking about sort of Emperor Norton and Black Civil Rights, the proclamations that there are a couple of proclamations that we sort of mainly sort of talk about and these sort of made it into the, into the shorthand of talking with this. And I think in the outset that, that we still are, you know, as, as so often with Emperor Norton, we're, we're, we're looking through the last start, you know, we're, you know, the documentary record is, is still sort of very, very thin. So I'm not really able to present a grand unified theory of Emperor Norton as a Black Civil Rights leader, but there is what I like to call sort of an arc of associations that I think are always sort of interesting to the look at and sort of think about. And so, so here's a proclamation that appeared in May of 1871 in the Pacific Appeal newspaper, whereas we ordered the color people some years back, we permitted to ride in the street railroad cars, but in order to prevent collision and future disturbance, we hereby command the arrest of all who violate that decree, and then it goes on to say something else. And then here's another proclamation that appeared on 7th of March 1874, also in the Pacific Appeal, whereas the American nation had acknowledged the citizenship of the colored people, their children are entitled to admission in the public schools, and all the privileges of citizenship, he was either take the citizenship away and exclude or admit them and grant them their privileges. So that's sort of where, where the Emperor is in, in, in the early 1870s, but our story really starts almost 20 years before that in 1855, and that, that was the year that there was the, what was called the first state convention of the colored people of the state of California. So this, this was sort of very, a very sort of early movement sort of effort. And at this, at this, at this meeting in Sacramento, and there were a number of these that happened over the next few years, these, these colored citizens conventions, Philip and Peter Anderson made the case that there needed to be a black newspaper to address sort of black concerns. So in 1856, this newspaper was started called the Mirror of the Times. In 1860, they brought in a new editor from New York named Philip Bell. Now, New York at the time, the, the, the the black led movement for black equality was further along in New York than it was in San Francisco. So, so at that point, of course, you know, Frederick Reynolds is already there and, and, and Philip Bell is an associate in Frederick Ellis. And so, so he already is, is a well known sort of writer and thinker on these issues that he's being brought in in 1860 to really, you know, take this, this paper to the next step. And there's, there's Philip Bell as he, as he looked sort of at the time. And so he comes in in 1860. And one of the first things that he, that he writes is about Emperor Norton. He's newly arrived in the city. And he writes this, this sort of opinion piece. I'm going to read the whole thing because it's really, it's really a, a fantastic piece that kind of gives you a sense of what his thinking was. And you'll see there at the bottom, a cosmopolite, that's his, that's his pen name. And he writes a word for the emperor. There is in this city an unfortunate man who defends himself a king or emperor or something of the kind. He glides harmlessly and offensively along, apparently proud of his stated uniform, which he finally imagines are the trappings of royalty. He is not hopelessly insane, or the authorities would take care of it. He is not a pauper for he begs not. Neither does he receive alms. He has, I suppose, friends who support him and suffer him to indulge in his innocent vagaries. Among savages in facility is viewed as a divine inspiration in the unfortunate subjects of a demented mind or considers being a peculiar care of the great spirit and respected and pity. How differently are they treated in this enlightened community? Some heartless wretches who in their outward form, bear the semblance all men, all or not men who bear the human form, but inwardly have reptile hearts often perpetrate, perpetrate what they call practical jones in this poor man by presenting him with spurious letters and royal personages, swords, epaulets and so forth. He receives them with becoming dignity, and they serve but to confirm him in his hallucination, his mind is to imbecile, and his brain too weak to understand the cruelty of the deception, it must be freeable to his friends to witness such things. A morning paper, which has many attributes of respectability, in which from its manly course on many subjects of great interest, wherein the rights of the community are concerned, opposing monopolies, characterizing oppression and justice by their right names, and advocating the interests of the poor man, has won a merit to title of honor indulges in this morning's issue on what I suppose a good joke at the expense of the unfortunate individual alluded to. I hope the sake of consistency of the paper and questionable in the future, refrain from the exhibitions of low wittesisms is a worthy admission of that sheet to hold up ridicule that which should excite sympathy. I'm a stranger here, and know nothing of the history of Mr. N. Can you give me the information?  But generally, the view is sort of one of sympathy. And I have looked high and low to see exactly what paper that he might have been referring to on that morning of August 17 or 18 was sort of wrote the piece that he was sort of talking about. But, but a couple of days later, on August 21, the emperor response in the pages of the same paper with a specific proclamation, I think civic in this sense, means peaceable. And so the emperor writes, we have noticed your letter signed cosmopolite word for the emperor, but he is laboring under an hallucination, rather a double entendre. Can the gentleman solve the mystery of our birth and parentage? He pretends to know everything but still seeks information. He may not choose to acknowledge that he is aware of frequent conspiracy against our person, rights and dignity, and that which appears strange to outsiders as part and parcel of those conspiracies. And also that politically, we have had to contend with the powerful factions policy hit or to has been to encourage dishonesty and drive out virtue. All such we say to me, happy, you must be virtuous. There's not the plume truth nor gold, but virtue that should be came. The American nation is now composed of all nations, and almost all religions may be difficult, please all. So the, so the response there is, it's a little bit prickly, but you get a very strong sense. You know, very early in the emperor's reign, still just below the one year mark of sort of what he, how he tries to sort of reframe the issues and sort of set the priorities straight. So going on a little bit further, in 1862, Philip Bell and Peter Anderson actually, basically, were converted the mirror of the times into the Pacific appeal with Peter Anderson, functioning as proprietor, and Philip Bell, functioning as editor. Very shortly after that, the two had a following out that has sort of differences of opinion and vision about the direction of paper. And Philip Bell started his own paper in 1965, called the elevator, and that paper ran for another 20 years. So he continued to be a distinguished figure in sort of black sort of intellectual and political life. So but in, in 1868, it seems that his, his view of the emperor had changed. He writes a small editorial item here called the editorial clown. Every profession has its pursuances, pretenders, men who think they are OFA in the mysteries of the profession they disgrace. Thus medicine has its quacks, the law its pettifoggers, the clergy of all denominations is a journey in preachers, monarchy has Emperor Norton, and the press had this Brick Pomeroy. So he's, he's, he's definitely at this point, he's gone a little a little sour on the emperor. In fact, it gets even worse. Later on, in, get the data in front of me. In 1876, Philip L. and Peter Anderson continued to be a sort of bitter riles. This gets played out in paper. And at one point, Philip L. editorializes, sort of trying to trying to sort of pigeonhole Peter Anderson, the public public view, talking about referencing, quote, the nonsensical proclamations about old imposter Emperor Norton, who is more made than fool. So, so his view definitely changed. And now that was, that was 1868, March of 1868. A couple of days later, there was an event in Platt's musical hall. This event, a political lecture by a new political club called Freedoms Defenders. This was a, this was a, this was a pro US grant pro union group. Of course, the election was coming up. And so they were, they were wanting to sort of extend sort of the vision of Blanken and make sure that it stuck. And so they were going to hold the lecture. And the speaker, let me first show you where this was. This was Platt's musical hall, which was on the northeast corner of Montgomery and Bush. Now, those of you who remember that original proclamation, you know, the Emperor talks about his calling on the representatives of the States to meet in musical hall the following February. That's a different musical hall. That musical hall, which is actually just across the street, actually burned in January of 1860. And so the Emperor had to specify a different location for, for the for the assembly. But this was Platt's musical hall, which was which was for many, many years was a was a was a major sort of concert lecture venue for the city. And at this meeting, the speaker was General Oscar Hugh LaGrange. LaGrange had been a Union general. And he had recently arrived in San Francisco. This is a photo from for about 1863. He came to San Francisco. And in an 1869, he actually was appointed the supervisor of US Mint in San Francisco, which works at the time, was on a commercial street between Montgomery and Kearney just down from where the Emperor was living. So but it was LaGrange, who, who oversaw the grand project of the Mint that now stands at Fifth and Mission. And so he, he gave a speech and and touched on all these, all these points, among which was the, the, the, the vision, bubbling up for an amendment to the Constitution that would guarantee the right to vote to men of color. We weren't to the point of women yet, but but but that that vote was seen as a as a natural and rightful sort of out working of the emancipation of proclamation. And that's part of what he was there to talk about. Now in the next day's paper in the examiner, took note of this meeting, the examiner was, was a democratic paper at a time, remember, when the Democrats were the pro-slavery group. And so, so they were, they were very, very wary of this meeting.  In the middle of this item, though, it says that there were many Democrats present out of curiosity in the body of the audience where Emperor Norton, several Negroes, et cetera, just enough to give rise to the occasion. So their, their idea clearly was to associate Emperor Norton with blacks as a way of discrediting both of them. But, but we see here and we have evidence from this item that the emperor was there. And he, he was sort of taking this up as, as a concern. So that is in March of 1868. The following February, February of 1869, US Congress actually passed the 15th Amendment, which was to guarantee the right to vote to men of color. And then for the next year, you would have the ratification process going through all the states. So in, in November of 1869, Peter Anderson gives lecture on this subject at the African, African Methodist Episcopal Church, which is we're looking here north on, on Stockton. And, and the church, the tower that you see there is, is the first Presbyterian church was on Stockton between Clay and Washington. The AME Zion Church was one block at the south of that. So one block closer to, to the view where they were sort of looking at. And that's where this meeting took place. And, and that was on November 15, 1869. And the next day, the, the examiner took note of that meeting, saying that the last year, Peter Anderson, the lecturer on the 15th Amendment and the Zion AME Church on Stockton Street, the attendance was very small. But among those present was Imperial Highness Norton I, an attentive listener. He occupied a front seat, the lecturer said in his opening remarks, that although the meeting was small, they conduct themselves with dignity. And then in parentheses, Emperor Norton fully agreed with this remark of his loyal subject. And where, and the color folks only recognize the fact that where he was, there was dignity. And so, and so again, you see the emperor being president and a counter for at another meeting where, where black equal rights are being hammered out. And it seems very possible that this meeting was where the emperor and and Peter Anderson met. So this is 18, this is 1869. And just for reference, here's a photograph of the emperor from March of 1869. So that's, that's how the emperor was looking during this period. This is still, this is still sort of before he became a more nationally known figure before he was sort of selling his bonds and able to sort of eat a bit better. So he was still, he was still known mainly in San Francisco, and was probably a pretty undernourished figure, but, but, but that's, that's the time frame that we're looking at. And, and during this period, the papers, the bulletin, for example, the print of that first proclamation, they continue to print the emperor's proclamation for the next couple of years, and then then they just sort of got tired of the joke, what to them was a joke.  Notably, the Daily Alta, whose, whose editor Albert Evans got in the habit of printing all sorts of proclamations under the emperor's name, there weren't hits, just for the, for the fun, just as a hoax, as a prank. And the emperor was getting tired of this as he was casting about in the late 1860s and 1870 for a new, a new venue to write his proclamations. So he started writing for the Pacific Appeal, which, you know, at this point was, was both sort of own operated and edited by Peter Anderson. He started writing for, for the paper, it's September of 1870, there are a few proclamations in that sort of fall and early winter. And then in December, 23rd, 1870, he had this proclamation published in the paper, being anxious to have a reliable weekly imperial organ, we nor the first day Gratia Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, who hereby appoint the Pacific Appeal our set organ conditionally, they are not traders and stand true to our colors. So so so that was the, you know, that was the arrangement. And actually, for the next five years, the Pacific Appeal printed some 250 of the emperor's proclamations. This was a weekly paper. And very often, there were two or three proclamations in the issue, always on the front page, you know, usually with this sort of proclamation heading at the top. And the arrangement went along very well. So all the all the proclamations that we know about and we're very lucky that the the California Digital Newspaper, the California Digital Digital Newspaper collection, which is based on Abuse to Riverside, has an almost complete set of the Pacific Appeal, which which ran from 1862 to 1880, digitized and open sources that we can define sort of all of this stuff. So all the great proclamations of the emperor about about fairness to the Chinese, about fairness to Native Americans, talking about political corruption and business corruption, all those things where he was sort of hammering out his, his vision of, of fairness and equity. And what we now sort of think of as the sort of progressive centralist ideal, he was doing it in this black owned weekly paper. It also came to the Streaching Halt in May of 1875. Now in this date, May 1875, these three proclamations appeared on the front page of the Pacific Appeal. I'm not going to read all of them. The first one, the emperor hereby orders the proper authorities to collect the fine and pose some Buckingham effect for refusing the first ever with boots and to hand the same over to the immigrant aid society. So it's funny, but it also, it also kind of gives you a sense of sort of where his priorities were. And then he has a couple of, a couple of, a couple more proclamations. Those all were on the front page with his name signed to each one. So then you come to page two, in that same issue, you have this problem. Whereas a person styling himself, Charles R. Peters, was at the time of the drawing of the Mercantile Library of Lottery accused of appropriating the Capitol Prize, which was won by Norton the first intended by the emperor for the chair of distribution. Whereas the said Peters is now attempting misrepresentation and false assertions to induce immigrants to purchase worthless land at a quote town, which he calls Newark, which has neither local habitation nor name outside of the imagination, said Peters. Now therefore, this is to caution all persons against being misled or deceived by the said Peters and the grand jury is hereby instructed to inquire into said matters and to bring said Peters to trial. Well, this start a firestorm, of course, the the proclamation is not signed. It certainly is in the style of Norton. And Norton sort of became the fall guy for it. The late Robert Chandler, in the book he wrote in, I believe, 2014, was talking about the sort of culture of printing at the time and talk about how an editor like Peter Anderson would have signed off on the original copy, but he wouldn't sign off on the printed piece. So once the papers left the editor's desk, it went to the type setter and and then it was possible for type setters to to have their own way with what actually got printed. So there is a possibility that that that it was the type setters roll here to sort of publish this thing, whether it was the emperors or not. But the upshot was that Charles Peters threatened suit. And and so a couple of weeks later, 29 May 1875, Anderson publishes this retraction in a civic appeal, writing an article appeared in the appeal some two or three weeks ago written by quote Emperor Norton or quote Norton the first reflecting on the excursion made to Newark under the proprietorship of Mr. Charles R. Peters, the eminent and enterprising real state broker. The article being put in the paper by a compositor in the establishment we get our paper printed against our express orders, said journeyman printer also took the quote emperors non-deplume from the bottom of the article, thus leaving the article without signature, as we have been imposed upon by the journeyman compositor as also an offense has been given to Mr. Peters against our wishes or will. We take this occasion to retract said article by Emperor Norton and forbid him hereafter, bring anything to our office publication. And we'll say to Mr. Peters that we have not been a party to or the writer of that article, and none regrets more than we do of the imposition, which Emperor Norton and journeyman printer is his practice on both ourself and Mr. Peters. And by strict vigilance, we promise that the like will not occur again. We believe Mr. Peters to be an honorable upright and enterprise and citizen and gentlemen. We also urge everyone who is the head of a family to buy his New York lots. So that was that was a pretty, that was a pretty thorough retraction and a pretty thorough rebuke of of the Emperor. And that really was that really sort of marked the end of of the relationship that the Emperor had enjoyed with the Pacific Appeal. What's interesting is that that nearly below this retraction in the same column. Anderson publishes a further op ed titled Our Position as a Journalist writing for the dozen or so of years that we have been publishing the Pacific Appeal. It has been our endeavor not to go out of our way to discuss any measures or schemes inaugurated by our enterprise and capitalists. We strictly confine ourselves such current subjects or topics as concerned the political elevation of the color race, which we are identified, as well as the oppressed of all nations. This week considered has been our legitimate sphere. And this only has been our mission. But like other journalists, in spite of the greatest caution, we sometimes inadvertently get placed into a false attitude many times for our best friends in the present instance, the trouble we are in, which is explained in our in our attraction in relation to Mr. Charles R. Peters, we have done all in our power and are willing to do anything else to make honorable amends to that gentleman. We are not those who get into an error, then persistent argument to justify it, but acknowledge it once and then ask forgiveness to those who we unwittingly offend. This week even a proper. And this has been our course. At the same time, the appeal in its original editorial matter will be bold, high toned and argumentative on all the great political and miscellaneous current subject to appertaining not only to the wealth of the color race, but other whole people of the United States. So, so Anderson wants to make very clear that he understands that that he occupies a very, very narrow stream and and that and that his ability to continue paddling in that stream depends upon the the the largest of money interest like Charles Peters. And so it's it's a it's a very, very telling couple of of opinion pieces that that that Peter Anderson writes on May 29 1875 and they seem to have done the trick because on June 5 of 1875 we see this piece headline liable case dismissed. The following item we clicked in the morning call of Thursday at last quote on motion determined presenting to people. Judge Lauderback history dismissed the complaint charging Peter Anderson the appeal was liable. One issue that paper there was published one of Emperor Norman's proclamations reflecting upon Mr. C. R. Peters and the following issue Mr. Peters Mr. Anderson made the immense honorable Mr. Peters being satisfied did not desire to prosecute in quote and then Anderson goes on we will take this occasion to further add that the dilemma in which we were inadvertently placed in last week in consequence of the idiotic paragraph or scrapped by quote Emperor Norton which was the cause of our trouble that after our explanation of the facts in the case in our last week's issue none were more prompt than Mr. Charles or Peters and Colonel William H. L. Barnes attorney in ceasing any further prosecution the case which they have our thanks measures cutting huge proprietors the extensive printing sale in which our paper printed also have our thanks for their promise of coming to our aid and rendering all these all the assistance in their power in order to relieve us if possible of difficulty the entire press of the city and state also have our thanks is no more disposed to lay a straw on our way and all rather implied sympathy in our case than desired a century before an explanation was given we also think our citizens of large for the many tokens of sympathy the confidence on our past course in integrity in not descending to such topics as would mar the standing of sympathy appeal in responsibility at least as a first-class journal. And so and so Anderson you know having having published the Emperor's proclamations for for solid four and a half years really continues to stick into the emperor here and and you know I mean my personal reading of this you know is that that surely you know what what all of this shows is that that on the margins of society which which is where Anderson prominent as he was within the black intellectual community you know he was so on the margins within San Francisco at large and so even within the margins you know there was a hierarchy and Emperor Norton despite his sympathy with the black cause was was easily made a fall guy and he was someone who who was deemed acceptable to to basically throw into the bus you know I don't have any further proof that that's just simply my my reading of what the what the documents seem to show but it's a fascinating turn of events and actually after 1875 and here's just a reference this is this is the emperor that is more fluid for a lot of people and that's that's a picture of the emperor in 1875 so that's how he looked when all this was was happening and after this event of of May of 1875 which was covered everywhere on both sides of the bay all papers in San Francisco covered it the local papers covered it was a big deal and he net he never really again found another place where he can have such a such a sort of steady venue for his proclamation and you do find proclamations by the emperor for mid 1875 until Seth in 1880 but not nearly as many as there have been for for so very many years so his his voice really in many ways was was at least in papers was somewhat swell you know he continued to be a character and make his opinion known about town I think I'm going to close my remarks there I will say one more thing just because I know that some of you may have to leave promptly we also different on trust are running a special sort of social media event today called be nortonian very simple idea take a photo or video of yourself being nortonian whatever that means to you if it means dressing in the costume reciting a poem singing a song working for a cause doing that kind of whatever it is take a photo video yourself post the Facebook or Twitter a hashtag it Empire Day and tags and we will will will share those things through our own channels as well and if we give enough of that we'll we'll do a gallery in this couple of days and and see what everybody was was thinking on this empire day and I will I'll close with that well thank you that was wonderful why don't we take some questions now I'm going to unshare your screen here why don't you do that John Oh thank you does anyone have any questions that they'd like to ask John about what he just said he covered a lot of material I posted a lot of resources there and I will send those out to you after the talk so that way you can actually click on the links because putting things in the chat space isn't as easy as I thought it would be any questions I mentioned them all I hope not please post your questions in the chat space and we will ask them of John oh here we go yay okay Matthew asks do we know for certain if Emperor Norton actually wrote that last proclamation against Charles Peters we don't we don't I mean it certainly is in his voice his name was left off it's very strange because because the other proclamations written or published in that same issue were done as they always were they were almost always on the front page usually at the bottom right the bottom left the fact of that was kind of slipped in on the second page it's very very strange but but certainly I mean what you what you saw in the in the in the in the retraction and the other comment that that that Peter Anderson published was that the libel suit was against him personally it wasn't just against the appeal so he was really personally feeling he so I I think I think you know what you basically have a situation probably where where Peter Anderson just knew the store you know and he wanted to he wanted to live fighting on the day and he had other things to do and and and the emperor those proclamations were were not at the center of his own personal mission and he had other things he wanted to do so it was the easiest thing for him to do was just cut the Emperor loose whether or not he actually wrote that problem so John Schmidt has a follow-up question after Norton lost the newspaper how were his proclamations were they just published in in random other papers or various ones and you can find you know occasionally the the Chronicle would publish one occasionally the exam would publish one the Euclid Tribune actually published several of them in that in that sort of period but I think you know it's just that the fact that that the Emperor had been so forthright in declaring you know this is my Imperial Orient sort of gives you gives you a little more confidence to know that those ones that were published in the appeal actually were his you know the ones the ones are published in that first year or two after after he declared himself Emperor those also seem to be his afterwards sort of after after 1875 you know it really kind of becomes a case of well you know looking at all the proclamations does this one seem to hold together is it of a piece with his concerns and if it is and if it seems to be his voice and you probably say that it's him but there were not nearly as many. Yeah identifying his voice sounds like it's trickier than it sounds. It is because you know someone just the other day that you know there there are there are a couple of sort of basic categories and one you know are these these very sort of public public spirited proclamations that are about sort of issues of the day issues of principle sometimes local topical things and then there's then there's this other category which is all about you know build my empire and give me back my money and you know give me a give me a new imperial palace and all the rest so you know the concerns of money and position we're still we're still things I think kind of more on him probably more and more is the years past and those are sort of the ones where where you can really kind of feel him going a little sideways but yet yet the ones that are that are public spirited you know those are still very much he's very sharp he's a great writer you know he's clearly someone who is who is in control of his thoughts when he has something to say. Great let's see Katherine asks she mentions you've described a very active black intellectual participation in early San Francisco do you have anything more to add? I will I can I can either I can give you the links to tear into three essays that maybe the ones we're talking about the three essays that I was mainly sort of drawing from that I wrote in the past couple of years about all these issues which have a lot more detail. There were there also was there was a I'm gonna I'm gonna blank on it now but there was a there was a there was a group there was a group that met every week on on post-tree it comes to me. But the emperor was a group of kind of a public community group that everyone would meet and and it was all to do with what they were considered sort of radical concerns so it was it was women's rights black rights and all of that and that was another sort of venue where where the effort was a regular attendee and actually there was a there was a journal called common sense that they had a very short but distinguished life for about a year year and a half and there are a couple of proclamations are published in that journal including one that is appears to be his longest one it goes on for quite quite a few paragraphs it wasn't limited by column space in the way that he was you know in the in the email that I sent out to the attendees I'll include a few essays that have been posted on the web Susan Anderson had one that I just read not too long ago and I can't seem to find it right now but more on that topic about the intellectual life of black Californians you know that there was a group of fellows who started up a library in 1853 which was well before the mechanics Institute well before the staff decades before the San Francisco public library months before the mercantile association library was a short that the library was short-lived but it's kind of amazing that that there was one in San Francisco I forgot to mention just all I think about it because I don't want to forget we were talking about that that proclamation from the 1870s where he's talking about insisting on the right of a black striped public three cars and for in fact that he's I've already told you this once so I'm now reminding you what I told you you know there was that old situation in 1863 it's four where Charlotte Brown in San Francisco served an early rows of parks sort of filed suit and actually won a suit for for having been for the attempt of the omnibus company to throw her off the the bus for for literally no other reason than being black and then a couple years later in 1866 7-8 Mary on Pleasant I had a similar court case on the same issue so in those cases were both widely covered in the papers the emperor was an average reader of the papers so it probably stands for reason that if there was another printed proclamation somewhere where he addressed this issue it probably would have been a response to to one or both of those those cases that pre-San Francisco a related question did the from George Westermark did the Democratic papers treat Norton's presence at black meetings as a joke I would say so I mean I mean just going going strictly on on on the copy that he got in the exam which was definitely was a democratic paper and and so you know I mean it's hard to say you know exactly what what he was able to be a person self was able to accomplish at the meet at these meetings but there there are there are a number of references in the papers to his presence at these meetings and sort of trying to get his his views kind of put across so but it but it seems to be that that that when the papers mentioned it was it was for it was often for humorous effect and it was often done to to discredit whatever the whatever the cause of that meeting well he was a regular at all kinds of meetings it could be about the eight hour law it could be about science it could be you know was he there for the free food or I'm joking Eric has a question that he he believes he once read that Norton was going to give a state of the Union speech that never took place do you know anything about this story well he was he was going to give a speech in February of 1860 you know when he when he when he issued his original proclamation you know declaring self emperor he went on to say you know and I call the representatives from the various states of the Union to meet in San Francisco next February at this time this place to hammer this out and when when the date actually approached the forget I believe it was a bulletin actually ran his speech in the words he he gave them a transcript of what he was going to write and they obviously knowing that no one was going to show up they actually published his comments through three days before the appointed day so I don't know if that's what that's what's being referenced here but that's that's the only speech that I that I know about that was that would there were kind of an answer to a sort of state of the Union kind of description but that that is actually a published speech it's in it's in the bulletin in February of 1860 um okay there's a lot a lot of comments here where Sherry asks were there people who didn't like the emperor who might have wanted to attack him with that proclamation with the original one with the original proclamation the Peter I think she's referring to the Peter's proclamation Peter's one yeah no it's a good it's a good question I haven't really considered that I mean whether they're like someone else who who knew that would give him a hot water maybe I you know I've not considered it I just I just don't know I don't I don't think that the emperor was doesn't appear to be considered a threat by many people you know I just it's kind of hard to imagine anyone would go to those lengths um Dave has a question do you know anything about Norton's childhood or his parents relationship with Blacks and South Africa surely that shaped his thinking growing up there yeah the record the record on on South Africa is is so so thin it's really really thin I mean basically all we all we know is sort of where he lived uh that he had he had some business dealings uh in 1840 I think he had his own his own business sort of went belly up within about a year that was when he was in Grammastown and then he moved to Cape Town to go to business with his father um you know his his father was a was a leader of the Jewish community um in in South Africa but but I've never come across anything um you know about about the issue of of black people their rights their lives their politics um well that's one of those things that you'll have to keep digging to find Matthew asks a question um why did Emperor Norton style himself as protector of Mexico was there a particular political thing that happened that made him realize Mexico needed protection yeah there was a 1863 Napoleon in France put Maximilian in place as the emperor of of Mexico and and and that was um basically in a in a hostile takeover situation and so he he the emperor didn't like that and appointed himself as protector of Mexico at one point not long after that uh maybe 1865 or so uh he's stopped um signing his proclamations as you know emperor of the united states and protector of Mexico uh but later on you get you get pretty deep into his in his right if he still is he's using that that moniker so it clearly was something that he he valued even even after it was no longer a a timely um and okay and then uh Matthew's another question are there records about how Norton felt about Native Americans and I think I've asked you something similar about do you know anything about how he felt about the irish or other ethnic groups yeah there's there's there's quite a lot I wish we had time to go into all kinds of stuff yeah there's there's there's there are there are quite a few uh proclamations about about Native Americans and about um um Native Americans getting their lands stolen and mistreated and abused in various ways uh there was a um there was a situation um uh in um in amador counting uh in 18 we don't blank on the date I think it was in the in maybe the early 1870s this was after he started writing for the appeals maybe like 1874 I believe there was a whole there was a whole conflict where where a group uh coming down from um I believe it was Oregon maybe um uh occupied some land in amador county uh in protest of all that was going on and there was a guy who was sort of their ringleader who actually was known as captain jack uh and the us marshals uh you know uh like brought captain jack at his at his serve uh followers uh up on on on marshal law charges and and and we're putting to death uh which they eventually did and the emperor had several proclamations in that moment saying you know this is not going to solve anything if you if you go through with this capital punishment you're only going to inflame the conflict to already exist or or you're only you're only going to exacerbate the hard feelings that exist between Native Americans and powers to be in the United States he was strongly urging against um you know against that as a as a solution which he didn't see it as a solution and at one point um uh issued proclamation urging uh those leaders captain jack and his and his and his fellow leaders to come to san francisco and uh and smoke the calumet with the emperor so so he actually he actually made them an invitation to come and smoke the peace pipe and and see if uh if the emperor kind of helped uh work this out so he was that was another issue he was very very sort of engaged with um it sounds like uh a whole other lecture could be could be um let's see john schmidt has a question and he wonders where can we read emper norton's proclamation in common sense i'm oh i actually i had there's a long post and i'll i'll give it i'll turn i'll give you that link and and okay there's a whole dedicated blog post about it has the entire uh has an image of it as it appeared and has uh the actual text of the thing so you can copy and paste it in old ultra max okay sounds like we have a quite a list of resources to send to people after this after this talk yeah let's we are bumping up on time but let me grab one more question robert asks um what were the changes from the end of the period you talked about until norton's death and the funeral march did did norton's popularity sink during the lawsuit era and then rebound or just yeah it's it's hard to know but i mean i think that the the main index we have is uh what the actual response was when the emperor died you know we have we have the records from the chronicle uh on on the january 11th 1880 so writing up the funeral that take a place a day before uh saying that that the funeral parlor on on uh feral street was inundated and the whole street was was packed with 10 000 people for for hours and so so that would seem to be uh at least some reflection of of how cherished he was and and uh and the comment the chronicle made at the time was that those who came out to see him were uh high and low rich and poor uh men and women people from every uh sort of classification came and and and certainly you know probably many of those would have been just sort of curiosity seekers but it seems like with with 10 000 people uh you know many many many of those were people who genuinely were were starting to see him go and who genuinely genuinely um you know uh were were fond of him and maybe maybe uh wish that they had uh treated them better when they could you know to another free lunch um all right well i we are i don't want to keep you talking too long because you know you get tired and you're not able to answer questions in a thoughtful way um but i just want to thank you for coming and hosting this talk with us offering all of your knowledge it's so interesting to see um the emperor the real guy what was he like um and uh you know get past get past the metals and the the plumage and and see what what he was really thinking and um and i want to thank all of our attendees for coming this event is sort of our kickoff event for san francisco history days um mechanics institute is hosting several events and those are listed on our website mi library dot org slash events if you want to check out what else we have offering what else we're offering um so thank you all for coming and thank you john and uh i look forward to seeing you again in a virtual space thanks for having me all right uh thanks everyone bye


Hi, I am Nathaniel Rumpeljantz and I am your local boss man and today I want to talk to you about Zelda fans and my big problem with the Zelda fan base. And then I'm going to end this episode with a little bit of a twist. I'm going to do an unboxing of a new item. I found a GameStop that has to do with Majora's Mask 3D. The item has already been unboxed and is sitting on my desk right over this old way. So today I wanted to talk to you about you, the Zelda fan. And this doesn't apply to everyone but this applies to enough people that I feel this point needs to be addressed. It's that Zelda fans and probably fans in general but I'm going to stick to just Zelda fans have this repeating thing going on throughout the fan base of judging Now obviously as human beings we are always judged and it is our human right to feel free to judge but we judge what makes someone a fan and that bothers me. As an example, someone might have just played their very first game in the Zelda series and played Majora's Mask 3D and a lot of Zelda fans will be well he's not really a real Zelda fan because he's only played Majora's Mask he hasn't played Arcade of Time, hasn't played the Legend of Zelda NES, doesn't know about the Tingle games, doesn't know about BS Zelda and the Ancient Zone Tablets, doesn't have Hyrule Historia, doesn't even own a Wii U let's say and we'll be all oh he's not a real fan he's not a true fan he's a casual he's this he's that he's not I can't even call him a fan he's just someone who tried out a Zelda game I hate that I hate that why why do we have this incessant need to rank what makes someone a fan to me a fan of the Zelda series is just someone who played at least one Zelda game they don't even have to have beaten that game but they have enjoyed their time playing that game and that they themselves say hey look I'm a fan of that game and you know what I'm probably gonna be a fan of the series so I am a Zelda fan that's fine what why why does it have to be any more than that to become a Zelda fan now I'm not gonna say there's not a difference between Zelda fans that there's not some that are you know more or less experienced than other fans of course I've been doing this all this thing for fansites for 17 years dating all the way back to 1998 when Ocarina of Time came out so when I launched my very first fansite and obviously Ocarina of Time had a big a big deal with why I did launch a fansite at the time but my point is is that obviously I played you know all 17 Zelda games I've played the CDI games I've played some of the Tingle games I haven't played Tetris slash Navi's trackers yet but I've played a lot of the Zelda games even the game and watch and I haven't beaten every single one I'm not gonna sit here and be oh man I've beaten all 17 Zelda games I've beaten them you know hundreds of times that's not true I haven't actually beaten every Zelda game but I've played every Zelda game and I've seen the ending of every Zelda game I'm a pretty you know I guess what you would say a pretty big fan I've been theorizing about the series for years I don't I don't own a physical copy of Hyrule of the story but I don't own a Wii U has a digital copy of it so I've actually read front to back Hyrule of the story and I often reference it when I'm debunking fan theories or trying to come up with my own in the grand scheme I'm a pretty big Zelda fan but I'm not sitting here telling someone say my best buddy Eric who also enjoys all the games hey you're not a real Zelda fan because you don't own all the Nintendo systems you don't own all the Zelda games you haven't played all the Zelda games and you know you visit my website and you shouldn't be visiting my website because you're not a real Zelda fan it's kind of infuriating to me in a bit I've seen this comments and I'll maybe we'll put some comments up here in the video of people who say you know you're not a Zelda fan if you know you haven't played Ocarina of Time you're not a Zelda fan if you don't know about ancient stone tablets you're not a Zelda fan period if all you do is just like Zelda and actually don't know a whole lot about it you aren't aware of all the intricacies of all the different characters in the lore and all that such and I hate that because we should be a very inclusive community that's what I want Zelda Informer to be I want us to be able to invite everyone be it the eight-year-olds who are just trying out the game or heck even if you're an adult and just trying out the game everyone from age six and eight all the way to age a hundred they all should be welcome here at Zelda Informer we shouldn't they should be coming here to be judged because that's not why fans are here fans are here to profess their love of this other series or you know if they if they love it to a point that they're able to criticize they're able to criticize some things they don't like about this other series but we're still all here because we'd like Zelda and really that's all the parameter should be to be a Zelda fan that you like Zelda period and a story so why do we have to tell fans that they're not fans I don't I don't get this I also don't get some of the fan bickering that goes on where someone has an opinion and then we have to attack that opinion because we don't agree with it and then we say oh well if you look at this unobjectively at the same time of that person who just said if you look at the game objectively that they at the same time are actually not looking at objectively they're putting their own opinions into saying that this mechanic is better for them than a mechanic in a different game and that that's just clashing and ironic and it's not right I'm not saying let's stop the debates I'm not saying let's not you know correct fans when they're wrong I'm just saying that why can't we be nicer about it be more inclusive and understanding that not everyone knows everything about Zelda and just because some fans visit or you guys visit zelda informer.com or our YouTube channel or our Facebook or our Twitter or our Google plus or our Tumblr if you guys visit anything that has to do with our website it doesn't necessarily mean that you know a whole lot about zelda and that's a misnomer that needs to be tossed away just throwing out the window there's this general opinion out there that if you visit a site like zelda informer you're obviously a mega fan of zelda and I I just that's been proven untrue time and time again people who are just fans in general of zelda like it as an example if because people like to throw out the term casual a lot I'm kind of a casual fan of the witcher series I have played the witcher one but I never beat it I played the witcher two I got about three quarters into it but I'd never beat it and I'm probably gonna play the witcher three but I'm not like this huge fan I don't read into all the lore behind it I don't follow all the developer interviews and the videos about everything going on with the game but that doesn't mean I'm interested in the game that doesn't mean that I won't go to a witcher fan site once in a while just to see what's going on and that that's what happens with casual fans and this ignores the fact that the last time I heard anything about the witcher was on Facebook I had a mention of it from a fan page about the witcher that I liked because I do like the witcher just because I don't follow it religiously doesn't mean I don't like the series and they had an update and that update appeared in my feed and I read it and I went to that website and this is what we have to understand is that Zelda Informa encompasses an entire world of fans it's not just the elite of the elite fans even though majority or audience as adults it doesn't mean all of those adults are exactly top tier Zelda fans when I say top tier I mean that notion that they've played every game you know everything about the series you are inside my brain and can understand what I'm saying and look at it objectively and because objectively I'm just talking opinions it's dumb so let's be nice to each other let's be inclusive to each other if a fan doesn't know about something let's inform them I mean we are Zelda Informa we're here to let fans know about the things that they don't know about so let's inform them no matter how old the game is or how new the game is it doesn't matter let's help our fans out let's make them more knowledgeable about the series if they want to know that knowledge and let's not be mean about it and this brings me to my last point I wanted to bring up about fans we had a case of a severe case of bullying going on on our Facebook page and our Facebook page is not the only place this happens we have a strict no attacking other people policy at Zelda Informa this includes our Facebook our Twitter our comments at Zelda Informa etc and there's only so much we can do in terms of banning people I just wanted to bring up that bullying whether you intend to be mean or not you have to be conscientious of what you're saying to people on the internet I know I know this is the internet you know I'm gonna be called fat because hey I am fat I'm gonna be called stupid I'm gonna be called you know a retard and none of these words are okay to use especially the retard word that has a connotation that goes well beyond trying to call someone stupid you're trying to call me stupid just call me stupid or better yet defeat what I'm saying instead of just acting like I'm some big bumbling idiot which I know I can be at times I think that the bullying stuff needs is to go away it needs to stop we had a fan and I'm not gonna say any names and I'm not gonna go too deep into it we had a fan who attempted to commit suicide last week and they attempted to commit suicide over something that was said on our Facebook page not just something and not just someone but several somethings and several someone and this disturbed me disturbed me greatly and I called and I have it all confirmed but I'm not gonna share any of that information with you guys because I know what the internet does when they get a hold of this public information and I'm ashamed that I can't be more forthright because I have to protect this person this is the kind of stuff that needs to stop we can't be having this going on at Zolden former and I understand it goes on in the internet all the time and I have had it happen to me I have had death threats against me and death threats against my family obviously nothing's ever come of it and I doubt anything ever will but it's still one of those things that we need to stop attacking people and just thinking it's okay because I'm anonymous and I'm on the internet and no one's gonna do anything about it it's it's silly and I don't want to start reporting you guys to the authorities just because you know our fans are getting depressed over things that you're saying to them let's all let's all be kind and rewind and and think about what we're gonna say before we say it okay even if you think it's not a big deal you know to say someone's ugly even if you legitimately think they're ugly you know it's it's like I've learned growing up as a religious person is you don't have anything nice to say just don't say it at all it doesn't mean you can't be critical that doesn't mean you can't be constructive it just means you need to be a bit more conscientious that everyone in life everyone on the internet comes from different backgrounds as an example growing up and this is a story I told Facebook I don't know how many people read it I tried to commit suicide twice in my life and I've thought about it probably four or five other times and the only reason I failed at the suicide is because I was a kid and as a kid I didn't know how to do things properly I tried to hang myself and I didn't tie the knot properly so the rope not came loose I ended up falling down about 10 feet and got severely hurt until my parents found me and then the other time I took a bunch of pills and again my parents found me and I had my stomach plumped at the hospital so I've had some serious things happen to me over my life because I was bullied I was made fun of and a lot of this happened when I was at school I was called four eyes because I had glasses you know I was told I wasn't good enough to hang out with certain people that I wasn't good enough at sports I was I was picked on and by the time I had high school I actually got physically beat up at a football game underneath bleachers and that's I was standing up for someone and then because they wouldn't stand up for themselves because I learned that maybe when I thought you stand up the bullies maybe they'll back down I'm gonna get him back down they kicked the crap out of me and no one did anything about it and this kind of stuff needs to stop those those people didn't realize that I had grown up mostly without a father now I'm gonna say my father wasn't there he was there and my parents are married they're still married but he was working 60 to 80 hour weeks and I didn't see him a whole lot I saw him occasionally on the weekend sometimes at a baseball game and you know he just kind of came in and out of my life while he could afford to because he was too busy putting a roof over our head and putting food on our table I got bullied to the you know and made fun of and I didn't know what to do about it because my dad wasn't around to teach me basically how to be a man and how to stand up for myself and how to put bullies in their place so they stopped doing it and the thing is they're not just doing it to me they're doing it to others and as I grew up there were friends of mine and people I was aware of in my town that actually did commit suicide and were able to complete it and didn't fail like me and a lot of it got linked back to bullying and that upsets me and now this happened at our website because of somebody or an attempt because of stuff that people on our website are saying I'm deeply disturbed for personal reasons and for the obvious reasons that this shouldn't be happening encompassing the whole not judging other people and not telling them how much or how little of a fan they are belittling them because they don't know as much about the series as you do we also have to be conscientious that everyone comes from different backgrounds as an example one person told me that I should go die in a fire now that might seem like you know an internet joke I'll go die in the fire well when I was a kid I almost did die in a fire my whole family almost died in a house fire and I you know that's not a joke to me to say that it might be a joke to you but it's something that actually happened in my life but it when they said it they don't know that background about me so I can say oh they don't know that so I should forgive them but because you know when you're a kid you're not able to necessarily get that and when you're an adult say you've been picked on your whole life or you're really sensitive about certain topics and someone calls you a retard that could send you way off on a tangent especially if you know people that are mentally handicapped it's it's a problem and it's a problem I don't want it's all the informers so we are cracking down we are banning people and getting them off of our website and off of our Facebook and social media because we want a friendly and company compassing place so this is kind of a warning a plead you know showing my desires for the kind of community I want Zeldin Farmer to be so please please please please think before you say things and if you just want to troll and have your fun then you could you could just do that elsewhere because that we just don't want that here too many people are being affected and the last thing I need to do is get an email get a phone call get a letter in the mail that somebody died because of something our fans do so please stop obviously we got an unboxing coming up I'm pretty excited about so we'll try to switch tones here get a bit more excited so uh yeah here we go here's the unboxing hey everybody I recently made a trip to GameStop when I say recently I mean today to just browse a little bit and see what I could find first off as you can see I finished off my Zelda amiibo collection do we need to do that for quite some time just been putting it off so I'll open those for you guys in a second but I wanted to show you something I didn't even know existed and it's this bad boy right here as you can see it's cheap and costs 10 bucks but it's a Majora's Mask 3D case for your 3DS and as you'll see right here as it focuses in it works with the new Nintendo 3DS XL new Nintendo 3DS the 3DS XL the normal 3DS and the 2DS so it's compatible with all the 3DS systems so I'm gonna open this for you right here I'm gonna try to do it one-handed I can't find my camera stand right now of course it's really hard to do one-handed aha these plastic tabs on the bottom here all right sorry about all the shaky camera so as you can see it's basically like a cdk shape the old cd cases it's got the official artwork on there the same one used on the box art the moon all the way on the back on the inside so it's got six game six game spots and then take this over here and this is where the pouch that you put the 3DS in and you might even want to keep this in here depending on which model you have extra protection so as you see it's kind of a cheap little thing but it's a nice way to protect your 3DS or in this case the new nintendo 3DS XL I'm still looking for a hardcover case for this so I just don't scratch it the hori cases exist but amazon does not have them in stock right now that's why I don't have but uh yeah kind of cool so that being said like I said 10 bucks at game stop I don't know if you can find these anywhere else it might be a game stop exclusive but pretty cool so I'll open up these bad boys quick I do like collecting things but I don't like keeping them in cases because what's the point of collecting something if you're not going to take it out all right so this is toon link a lot of you guys already have this toon link amiibo picked him up because obviously I want to complete myself the collection and I don't think toon link's going to be made forever because they haven't made a new toon style game since 2009 when spirit tracks came out all right and this one's link this was a launch one that I never got so just take him out there's link and then this is chic that's chic which by the way for those wondering is female been confirmed by bill trying to net nintendo but uh yeah there you go chic was obviously only in ocarina of time and hyrule warriors so chic like toon link could also be one that's out of out of print soon or out of production I should say and then obviously I had my is all the one that I bought at launch there's my four amiibo and there's the brand new case in the back as I said this is 10 bucks the amiibo's you know we're about 13 so yeah pretty cool hope you guys like it and hope you guys like adding to your majority's mass 3d collection and that should about wrap it up this week you can check me out if you have a twitter you can check me out on twitter at nate chance you can also obviously check out our website at zelda informer and we have a facebook we have a tumblr we have all this great stuff put some links up and get you guys around be sure to subscribe to our channel if you like these videos I know that this was a more serious video and I know on my last video if you want to go back and watch that last video I was kind of ripping into nintendo and that's great that's cool that's dandy uh you can go check that out if you want but there's also videos I have where I theorize about zelda you and I got some awesome theories rolling around in this head that I want to bring out to you guys uh but this week I felt like I needed to be a bit more somber a bit more serious because I've been noticing an ongoing problem and hey let's just stop let's make a better tomorrow and a better zelda informer all right I will see you guys next time adios


Okay. Hi, everyone. Welcome to this webinar. We are going to focus here today on talking about discovery. This is for me kind of like the most important thing that a product manager should be doing. So I think this is very nice for us to have like this discussion right now. Here at Discovery Hour is kind of like framework that I put together based on other frameworks, right? So we can kind of like have some time as product managers to focus exactly on doing a proper discovery and also focusing on our targets. So first, I will talk about the agenda for today. So I'm going to introduce myself very shortly so you can kind of like get to know me a little bit better and also understand a little bit more where I'm coming from, right? Like in how this kind of like came together. Also I will talk about the bibliography. So thinking where I get the frameworks that I'm using right now. And it's not just that I invented things up, right? So I'm using this framework around other authors as well. So I'm going to talk a little bit about them as well. Then obviously we are going to discuss what is Discovery Hour, right? Like how can we utilize, why we should be doing this in our company, doing this for our product and so on. And then I will deep dive on the three steps framework. So we are going to talk about product strategy gambas. We are going to talk about opportunity tree. And we are also going to talk about the product capital. These I will detail a little bit more in a short moment, but just so we kind of like know where we are heading right now and get some directions. So about me, it's me, Ki. So I'm Guilherme. Nice meeting you all. I'm from Brazil. I'm a product manager that moved to Berlin two years ago, more or less. But I've been doing product for seven years right now. But I did design a little bit and also I was an analyst before. So this is kind of like gives you a little bit more an understanding where this is my background, where I come from and what I've been doing. And also just a curious fact, right? Like I'm a gamer by heart and also I really enjoy a good volleyball game. So especially in the Olympics, I think this is very, very interesting. And it's very good that Brazil does a little bit well there. So it's nice also to cheer it up. And to think a little bit about my career here, you can see that most of the times I'm working in e-commerce and marketplace. And also most of them also were based in Brazil. But I did a little bit on Brazilian market, also Latin American market and also some international companies such as Sephora or even the Liverpool. And I find it like very interesting because here you can see kind of like a straight line and then with the dates and so on. But as my personal experience, actually product doesn't look like that. So being a product manager for me is very weird to just have like this straight line and then feeling like what I'm doing currently for me, it's more like this. So this is my feeling when I talk about product manager, right? Like so product management here, it's all about like you're trying to reach your goal, but you have to face a lot of obstacles, trying to find the correct path, trying to test a bunch of things until you find like a good spot that you can actually move forward. And by moving forward, sometimes there's also taking a step back, re-planning, rethinking and then questioning yourselves a little bit more. So you need to dodge a lot of things, but also consider the obstacles that you're going to face, all the meetings that you're going to get, all the alignments that needs to be done. And I would see that this at least is my experience when I think about product management, right? So it's kind of like finding this middle path that is going to kind of like push me forward, even though sometimes I need to take some steps back. That being said, to try and do all this dodging, this is why I created kind of like this framework or I put together this framework to try and find this spot a little bit more directed instead of just trying to guess what would be a good position, right? Or how can I actually continue moving forward? So this is why Discovery Hour kind of appeared and I kind of like built it in to get this more easy. So starting on the bibliography here, we have the two product persons that I most love in the world. So it's kind of like Melissa Perry and Teresa Torres, both of them very, very inspirational. And here, this is where I draw the inspiration from, right? Like I utilize in my framework, their frameworks. So actually what I did is put together in a cohesive way for my team that we could explore this further and then we could actually continue moving forward constantly, right? So it's starting with Melissa Perry. Here you can see the product strategy canvas and the product Cata. These are two things that she actually talks a lot about. So it's trying to set your vision, try to set your goals, try to be very clear and take one step at a time. And I find that this is super, super relevant while talking about product. And also her book that is escaping the build trap, also very interesting because like I feel that as product managers, it's very easy for us to fall under this trap that we build a lot of things, we launch a lot of things, but we don't see the outcome coming, right? So this for me, it's kind of like I can relate very well with this kind of behavior. And also Teresa Torres comes with the opportunity tree that gives us a very clear path on understanding what is the goal that we need to achieve and how we are going to achieve it. So I think here also Teresa Torres in her book that it's kind of like continuous discovery habits. She, it's kind of like masterful on telling us that discovery is not a thing that we do it once and then never again. This should be continuous, this should be taken seriously step by step, this should be something that is on our routine. So it shouldn't be like, hey, I did this one month ago and never again, now I will launch a lot of features and then I come back afterwards to do it again. So I think this like when we combine these things, we can kind of like see a clear good path where you can focus on the right goals, focus on the right things and also detail it and align it very well. So then what is actually discovery hour? So discovery hour is a one hour collaborative meeting that happens once a week. These ones a week is due like, because on my team it works better that way, but also I tried already once every two weeks, I also tried twice a week. You can see and feel how your team is going to adapt to it. Sometimes it's better to start a little bit more like with last meetings and then you start to kind of like get into the groove and get into the move and then turn it into a weekly meeting. Why does this is important in a way, right? Like it's because then you have like this time that is focused for you to just do discovery without needing to kind of like go run through a meeting and then doing something else, right? Like so you will block some time for you actually think about it. So this also helps you to get this into a routine. So here you should also discuss your opportunities that you have with your team online on what is going to be the next steps and uncover new solutions. Who should attend in these meetings is actually the product manager, the designer and the analyst, these people are required, right? Like so I would feel that the product triad should be there on this meeting to discuss this. And then also engineers and researchers also they are very encouraged to join but if they are not able to or they are not available for this meeting that is totally fine but it would be very nice to get their insights as well. And what I need to start, right? Like so do I need to prepare myself up? I would say that first you need to have like your product information, right?  You don't need to have all the answers, you don't need to have a full report but you need to get an understanding of what is your product, what you're trying to achieve, right? Like you need to have clarity on your product so you can start doing this. And I think this is kind of like the base ground for you to do a good discovery. And then what you can expect from the discovery hour. So what you're going to take from it when you start doing it. So for me at least the first and most important thing here is talking about validating the hypothesis that we have. Again, just reinforcing sometimes as product managers we are so driven to launch things and doing something on the sprint that we forget the validation part that we forget also we don't find the time to actually validate the ideas that we have, the opportunities that we are foreseeing. So here in discovery hour, you will have time to align, organize and also validate your hypothesis. This here is going to help you start focusing on questions instead of the solutions. So instead of becoming like a feature machine your team is actually going to start thinking like what is valuable to our product, what is valuable to our company. And then this is going to engage the team and bring transparency with your partners. So engaging the team here is actually that everybody's will understand where things are coming from, what are the reason behind it, why we are doing what we are doing currently and why this is prioritized. As well the transparency with partners, stakeholders, management and so on, because you can give them a clarity on what will be the next step, what is the objective that you're following, what is the next goal. And then this is going to help you also focus on outcome instead of output. So you can prioritize better. You can kind of like understand better where your product is right now and what you need to do to go for the next stage. And then lastly but not least, we have like the break big solutions into small steps. Again, I see this all the time in product management that we have this huge ideas, huge solutions to achieve huge goals, but we don't know where to start. It feels like this chunk of work that it's kind of like, oh my God, where do I even start tackling it, right? And then this should help you also to break it down a little bit more on things that actually you can do. And then you can start seeing this outcome coming in by waves, right? So it's kind of like motivating for you to continue doing it. So let's just start. First is like the product strategy canvas. And for us to start there, as I mentioned before, we need to have clarity on what is your product. So for this example, I'm a very practical person. So I tried to put this as an example. So for us to follow, imagine that we are actually an ice cream truck brand, right? So we have been around for a long, long time. We are facing some difficulties in scaling up and also increasing our sales. So we actually, we've been quite stable for the past years, but this is not as good, right? Because now we are foreseeing a problem. So the problem that we are seeing here is that actually if we continue in this path, we will not be able to acquire new customers. And then obviously we will be pushed out of business in the future. So this is our context. This is the information that we have when we have clarity on what is our product and actually what is the problem that we are foreseeing, right? Like so the product is very well set. And then from now here, we are going to start the product strategy canvas. So here again, this is from Melissa Perry. It's her framework. I'm just kind of like putting it together in a way that actually made for me more actionable. So here you start with a vision. And then what she says here is that your vision needs to be kind of a long-term high level. So you can kind of like know where you are going, but this is not going to be actionable enough for you to kind of like start tackling. So think long-term where your product needs to be. In this example, just for us to kind of like really around, it's kind of like in five years, the ice cream truck will be the go-to ice cream truck in this region. So this is the vision that we have. Again, if we think only about the vision, this is going to be super challenging, right? Like there are so many ways for you to be the go-to ice truck, that it's kind of like super hard for you to even detail this even more. It's hard for you to start doing something. So because of that, Melissa Perry also tells us that we need to be a little bit more, we need to deep dive, right? So the challenge is actually what you need to do to be a little bit closer to your vision. And then you need to set a timeframe for this challenge. So the challenge is kind of like around six months. And then also you can consider your OCR for the semester. So for this example here, we can say that for us to reach our vision, where I like to be this go-to ice cream truck, we will need to increase the sales in one neighborhood at least by 10% until the end of the year. So more or less this kind of like six months frame, right? It doesn't need to be six months exactly. It can be four, it can be six, but it's something actionable in a given period of time that you know you can put something on, right? Like that you can manipulate. It shouldn't be something too high level that you do not know where to start. And then this measurable objective, again, it can be a little bit challenging too many paths. She asks you also to detail even more. So let's go for the target condition, which is like a piece that is going to help you out to achieve this increase in sales. In this case, we are talking about increasing the new customers by 20%. So this is the first thing that we need to do. Remember the problem that we foresee is that we do not acquire enough new customers. And then this can throw us out of business. So here what I'm seeing is that for me to increase my sales, for me to be actually the go-to ice cream truck, I need more people to know me, more people to actually buy from me. So this is why increasing the new customers makes sense for now. And then also she says that these needs to have a current state. You cannot have a target condition if you don't know where you are. So think about, for example, that on average, new customers for us is 10% of the sales, which means that if we increase by 20%, then we will be increasing the sales by 10% until the end of the year. Right now, this is very good to share. So this product strategy canvas is a good conversation starter with your stakeholders and with your team. This is where the team can start understanding what we are doing, what we are doing. And now, so this is the way for you to align with your stakeholders with the path that you are going to take together. So here is when you start sharing and saying, hey, we have this challenge that we are seeing, we have this condition that we wanna arrive, we have this metrics, we have these problems. So start engaging with the stakeholders and with the team so everybody understand where this is coming from. And this I would say is the first step. When you can kind of like visualize in a very clear, transparent way, in a very shareable way, what is going to be your target condition and your challenge for the next six months. And why this is important is because it's going to connect to the opportunity tree from Teresa Toys. And this is our step two. So the step two is you map your desired outcome that you already did. So you know that you wanna increase the new customers by 20%. And then here, Teresa Toys talks a lot about how do you connect the opportunities that you have. Very important here. Every opportunity for you needs to connect to the outcome that you want. This is going to help you focus in the team to focus and also not do things that are not aligned. So here, for example, we can have a great opportunity to increase retention of churned clients, but this is not our outcome goal. So we are not going to tackle this opportunity right now because it's a great one, right? Like it's going to be awesome if we can retain our customers. But right now we are talking about acquiring new ones. So you kind of like understand that just set a path that your team are going to focus and actually are going to move this needle. This is important because commonly it's very easy for us to get distracted in very good opportunities. They are going to move some metrics, but imagine that in six months you do one thing for, or you move one opportunity per metric, in the end you don't move a lot of the same metric. So it's better for you to concentrate and actually go for one metric that is very important for your business now. So remember, you need to start this strategy and then in the opportunity tree you're going to try and achieve this strategy, right? Like you're going to put this into action. You want to achieve this desired outcome. And then here you start mapping the opportunities that you have connected. So for example, it could be created an incentive for new customers. It could be also changing the route that you're doing or even focus on brand awareness. So these are some opportunities that you could do to increase the new customers, right? So you are going to gather new customers by doing some things. But again, opportunity is a little bit high level. How can you change your route? Where do you start? And then here is very important. It is that Thohis mentioned a lot that you need to arrive at a detail point that you can do some actions to it. You're not going to change your route, I don't know, by your desire or by guessing a new route. You need to detail more what does it mean? How can you actually be hands-on on it? And how can you actually solve something on this opportunity? And here comes the solutions. So for each opportunity, you can have multiple solutions. If you have only like one opportunity with one solution, you need to think a little bit more. If this opportunity actually is not a solution itself, that needs a little bit more tailoring to find the original opportunity. So it's not advised for you to have like one opportunity with one solution only. Try to think if we cannot gather this as solutions of the same opportunity. And then here, for example, for creating an incentive for new customers, we could say that we can give a discount or we can add like a free add-on, maybe a topping for free, like thinking about the new customer incentive. By changing the route, you can go for a new street, but also you can kind of like park in neighborhood hotspots. And then this is important because the solution is not the end game. We need to remember that as product managers, we need to experiment, right? We don't have all the information all the time. And we need to have the ability to experiment quickly and learn quickly. So she also asked us to map these experimentations.  You see how this is all connected to this same desired outcome and now it's much more actionable. If you need to park your truck where teenagers go, this is much easier for you to actually do something about it. You can research more, you can go forward, you can test it out. It's something so much tangible that change your route was not going to be, but it's connected. So you can see here that there is a line of connection that is going to help you out to achieve the goal that you want. Just let's kind of like step back a little bit, but imagine that if someone says like, hey, increase the new customers by 20%, it feels a little bit frightening because it can be a lot. Like where do you start? But if someone says like, hey, we need to park our truck where teenagers go after school, much more actionable. I think like this is the power that we want to have, like as product managers, we want to understand what we are doing now to achieve the goal that we set. So we also get a lot of control. And why is this important? Because in this experimentation here is actually when you start to validate hypothesis, so you have more clarity. And then here is also where we are going to connect with the last stage, so the step three because let's again prioritize, imagine that we have all the data that we need and all the researches, and then we can prioritize this opportunity of changing the route and even the solution to going to neighborhood hotspots. And then we are going to enter the product Cata. And then again, product Cata is from Melissa Perry. And here, this is how it works. We have five stages to accomplish, right, like a product Cata line. So here again, go to a neighborhood hotspot. This is the one that we prioritize because we understood this is kind of like a good opportunity to us and a good solution. Here you need to map again, what is your current state? Remember where you are now for this solution specifically and what you are seeing right now for your product. So currently we don't park our truck anywhere and we just keep driving. So imagine that this is what happens to our product. So what is the first blocker? And here the obstacle is the first one that you foresee. We can go like for many, but think about the first one that is like blocking you to move forward in this. So actually what is impeding us to continue parking is because we don't know a good place to park. So this is the problem, right? Like, so where should I start parking? Anywhere goes or should I think about it? So if I don't know where I should park, then I need to take a step and this step is the actionable item. So think about what you need to do to solve this obstacle. So see how we're detailing in very chewable steps because then go to neighborhood hot spots can be super, super complex. But now actually what I need to solve is that find a good place for me to park. So this is much more actionable. And then here on this step is actually I need to do a research on the best markets that I could be. And you need to also map what is the expectation here? So if you do this research, what do we wanna find out? Why this is important is because then you have clarity on the steps that you were taking. You're not taking a step just because of it. You actually will have something around it. You're going to collect something, you will learn something. And then on the expected is what you're going to learn, what you're going to take from this step. So for us here in this research on the best markets, we want to find a good spot to park our truck. And then what we learned here from this research that we did is that teenagers gather on a skate park after school and stay there for hours. So now we are in a different state. We are not in the same stage that we started. We learned something and now we are in a new state. Where is that? We know that teenagers are a good customer to us and we know where they are. So this is good, right? Like we are kind of like moving the product forward here. We are on another obstacle now. We don't know what would be a good approach to them. So how do you start and put your truck there? And then how do you attract those teenagers that are there skating? So the other stuff that we could take here, for example, is do an analysis on what teenagers most buy from us. So what are their favorite ice cream? And you want to learn the favorite flavor. And in here, the learning part is that they prefer strawberry ice cream. So you see how we go step by step and the big solution that we had before now is much more detailed. And this is what you are doing constantly in these meetings, right, like with your team. This is why it's required a designer and an analyst because you need to discuss these things in a line and what the steps that you're taking and where this is going. After you find out that the teenagers prefer strawberry then you go here again in a new current state. So here now we know a good spot and we know the best flavor. The obstacle is that we never been to this park before. So this is a new thing for us, right? So will they accept us there? Then this step would be now to run an experiment going one day there and then have more strawberry ice cream available because you know is the favorite brand, right? Different flavor. So here you have an actionable experiment, right? So you're going to try it out. You're not committing to rollout. You're not committing to say, hey, I'm going to park there every day. You're going to say, hey, let me go one day there and see if my sales increase if I gather new customers. Let me see if this is a good one. And then the expected is that actually we will increase the new customer base. And then we can learn something here. Here is important because I put an example here that kind of things fall into place. But imagine now this is an open end but now like we didn't gather new customers. So this was a failure. What you learn here is that maybe in skate parks, teenagers doesn't want ice cream. They prefer soda. And now you have a new current state. The new current state is actually your product is not fit for this group of people right now. And then you have an obstacle. Do you want it to give up on this, right? And say, hey, then this I'm not going to continue and then that's okay. This is a product decision. Or do you want it to add soda to your ice cream truck? And then this day you're going to start selling soda. And then if this is positive, now the new current state is that you can find similar markets, right? So you know what works. This is the new current state. So you know that teenagers at ice skate park after school are open to buying ice cream. So the new obstacle now is like how can you find similar places? For example, you don't know where else to go with this information. So this cat is going to help you map things in a very step-by-step way. And this is also great for you to share with your stakeholders. Because you see that when you prioritize one's opportunity and one solution here, they are going to understand where you are at and why you're doing things that you're doing. This is commonly the clash that happens. Product managers often that we have like a solution we have an experiment, but sometimes we don't communicate the reasons behind it. So imagine that I didn't do the cat up and I just arrived at this step of running an experiment with strawberry ice cream in a park. This could sounds very kind of like aggressive for a stakeholder that is used to attract the never stops and that doesn't have like strawberry ice cream very frequently. And now you're telling that we need to change everything and nobody kind of like understands why. So this is going to help you tell them like, hey, we don't park, but maybe we can find a market that is profitable for us. Maybe we can find a new group of people and this is connected. Like this is super connected to the outcome that you agreed upon in your product strategy canvas. This is very connected to the opportunity that you are open to. This is how you're kind of like making clear decisions through your product that are connected to the goal that you want to move. And this is where I think this is kind of like very good for you to drive conversations and drive alignment. So I think this is kind of like the three steps that I normally take and this is what happens in the meeting, right? So we go from remembering the strategy, remember what we are going to talking about the opportunities and the outcome that we are going to achieve and then thinking about what are the next steps that we need to take considering each solution opportunity that we have. You can have multiple catas open at the same time but you should not have multiple steps of the same cata happening at the same time. You need to focus always on the first step that you need to take with the current state that you are, right? So imagine here that you're talking about doing a research, this is going to take some time. So you're not going to just wait, you're going to open a different cata for a different solution opportunity that you're going to say, hey, I will take another step for something else. And then you start to manage this better and you start doing this is no ball effect that you have a learning that is going to become a new current state that there is another learning, another state, another learning and then you can kind of like start putting experiments after experiments, after experiments. And this helps everybody join in. And then after six months, right? You can think about, should I continue challenging this or should I kind of like change my challenge, my target condition, right? And then you keep looking at the data and insights and so on. So you can kind of like do this as smoothly and as smoothly. And once this is kind of like in your team and the stakeholders are aware of this, the conversation starts to get a little bit clearer and a little bit more transparent. So let's remember that key takeaways from this. So we can kind of like, what should we leave, right? I talked quite a lot right now. So what we should leave this meeting from. So remember here, set a clear long-term vision and meet term achievable goals. So remember to be focused, be transparent and share along the way. Don't hide things, right? Like let the conversation be clear and transparent. What is the priority of your team, of your product at this moment and why? So what is the vision? What is the challenge? What is the condition that you're going to go for? Be focused on these goals, right? Like don't just kind of like run around doing any opportunity, any solution that drops. Think about how are you connecting to the desired outcome that you want? And then for sure, take one step at a time. Don't try to kind of like go for the final solution just pushing a lot of things in the way. Think, take a step back. Remember like the gift that I showed, take a step back, don't get hurt by the fire and then move forward when you have more clarity. And then obviously the role for every product manager, experiment, experiment and experiment. That's all that I have to say. Thank you very much for joining this webinar and I hope you enjoy it. I'm very open to continue this discussion. And if you want, just search my name and then we can continue moving from here. Thank you very much.