We're here at ITU Telecom World 2015 in Budapest, Hungary and I'm very pleased to be joined by Dr Alex Lin, who is head of Infocom Investments. Dr Lin, thank you very much for being with us today. Thanks for having me, dear. Now Infocom is a Singapore-based company that builds and invests in ICT startups. I wanted to ask you, what are some of the key challenges faced by startups, in particular the ones that you work with? Oh, these are very interesting questions and this question, frankly, is almost universal across the world. One of the major challenges for most of the startups that we've seen is actually finding the product market fit, that means producing a product that the market wants. A lot of times, we meet startups that they're able to produce products in trying to solve a problem that only happened in their head, versus that really out in the market. In fact, we just have a conversation just now out there, having a brainstorming session and seeing how we can help all these things together. He came out to exactly the same problem everybody faced, startup, solving problems that nobody wants. And that is one of the major challenges we are constantly facing. And what are the most important things, in your opinion, that governments can do to foster growth in ICTs? Governments play a very important role, especially in the Asia context. Why do I say that? In Asia, everybody looks towards the government to do something to help them, which also means that the government is a well-respected, whether they like it or not, is a well-respected agent down there. Now, when the government is able to communicate to everybody and share with them that this is the right way to do, and everybody will listen and they will start experimenting and move towards that path. So in Singapore context, we have a very supporting government, and the government constantly advises and shows the people that it is okay to experiment. This is okay to do something and see where the opportunity lies. And because of that, we build sufficient knowledge, and this knowledge is able to share in the ecosystem, and that ecosystem begins to flourish. Now, as a subsidiary of the Infocom Development Authority of Singapore, what are some of the key lessons that you've learned from public-private partnerships that could be duplicated elsewhere? Well, we learned a lot of things through the last one and a half year when we started an initiative, we called Acceleration Initiative. Just a little bit of background about this initiative is that everywhere everybody is doing is incubation first than acceleration. That means that they try a technology, grow it to a certain stage, and say maybe there's a market for it, and then they accelerate. We flip the model the other way, and we say that let's look at the market first. So we do acceleration first before the incubation, and once you find the market fit, you can build the products. Now, this particular model has an inherent problem, a rather weakness. In the acceleration model, you don't really know who the market customer are. So you need some people to help. You don't have the infrastructure, everything is new, so you have to build it. And the most importantly is that domain knowledge may not be there. And we search around and realize that company, corporation has all this. They have the customer, they have the infrastructure, they have the domain knowledge. And now we stitch everything together, we call them corporate acceleration. Where the government, also as a funding, as well as the knowledge, put it together with the corporate, which is the private, and together with the risk capital, and we form acceleration together. And this will go quite well and be able to groom startup in a much faster way, and the startup will get a higher chance of success. From your perspective, what is the role that ITU can play in fostering the growth of SMEs in the ICT sector? ITU play a very important role. ITU is a governing body for telecom, which have a very deep influence into the whole industry. ITU is a well-respected organization where people will listen to what ITU says, and he is able to stitch and bring all the parties together. Now imagine that a scheme that ITU will be able to do by bringing the knowledge and experience of Singapore has built up to the surrounding countries, and we work together closely by spreading the knowledge of acceleration, grooming the startup, and including investment together. Now we will be able to prosper not just the region and in fact globally. So we see ITU as a very important element that we want to figure out how to work together. And finally, I'd like to ask you, what's the value for you in participating in events such as ITU Telecom World? Well, the value is huge. We started off by not knowing. As this for me, not knowing what to expect and having clean states to come here to make some assessments, make some knowledge. And what we notice is that the ITU is being agile and trying to help his membership country. And what we notice that is that that is the kind of relation that we built up. That's the network that we built up, and there is a lot of collaboration that can happen. It may not happen in the conference itself, but it's all happened throughout the whole event. Dr. Alex, thank you very much for keeping with us today. Thank you very much for helping me, too. Thank you.


Gynnydd eichincir o'i cais wytru eich cyflogad i gyfrannu i gyda'r dwybarth o'r ystodol. Rhywb fy modd hyn i gyd. While there was a thing about a man, someone said, there's no women role models. I just spent 5 minutes on the internet looking, and just rolling off, woman after woman after woman, and they were doing amazing things in computer science and it was ridiculous. Everybody in this room probably has a mobile phone. I can almost guarantee everybody in this room is running a mobile phone with a processor in it that this will be invented.  To do that in only 18 months, this is everything about a processor and to deliver it on time and for it to work first time. I probably shouldn't have been making that sound amazing. It sounds like I can't make things work first time. I think it's amazing. I'm really it. Comments about one little body based brother wasn't a single female speaker and the general comment was that another lady would make a little body. So we were starting to discuss whether we could actually start every session with a slide of one woman as a little follow and take. I originally said three, but I'm sorry. Don't worry. I've only got one because I forgot all about it and I didn't do it quickly. I think different ones. That's the whole point. Anyway, I better start. Thank you for coming. I freelance work developer doing Drupal these days, but I've never worked for an agency, actually. I came from a big pharmaceutical company before I started doing Drupal. In my history of them teaching and I've worked for a defence company doing crazy stuff down in London, which is kind of fun. I'm based at the Ministry of Defence headquarters, which is kind of hilarious and escorted everywhere. It's almost security claims came through and I get involved in and this is a picture. The backdrop is a picture from what we were doing the core mentor sprint in Dublin and I love it. I absolutely love it and I'll come back to more of that in a minute. So a little bit more about me. Just a little bit of sort of a little story about me. I can't run. I've really, well, I used to think that. I decided I was going to try running a year ago, well just over a year ago. So I went to the park run and if anybody said park run, it's like 5K run all over the country. Quite a few other countries as well now. And I think I stopped about four times on the way round just because I just couldn't do it. But I met some people there that I know through other things that I do. And these two lovely ladies invited me to come to their little non-competitive running club. And said yes. And they inspired me to really, really put the effort in. They encouraged me, they were honest with me about a few things I need to change. They kind of guided me, mented me for a better description. And I'm not here tomorrow because I'm doing the Cambridge Half Marathon. And I'm hoping to get a reasonable time too. Well for me anyway, it's my first one. So I'm doing it for cancer research. But I'll stick that up at the end. And yet, what would do us? Anyway, so it was with that story. I kind of mentioned a few things there around mentoring and basically turning me from someone who couldn't do something into someone who can do something. And that is a challenge for all agencies, agencies, sort of Drupal related companies. Well right. How do we get people who can bring along the rest of the staff, who can provide that leadership? So I've been sending out questionnaires and stuff to various companies and bits and pieces over the last couple of months. Trying to get some idea about how they go about actually getting their senior employees. Where are they getting these people from? And asking various questions. And the difficulty is they have filling those roles. I didn't say any more than seeing your roles. That was the only term I used. These are some of the examples, things that were coming back from then. I was amused by the term, the most massive shortage of decent talent. I was like, ouch, that hurts. But there is a shortage of Drupal people to basically hit the ground running. But not only be good, but help the rest of the people in that company be good. Because that's what you need. Everybody hates recruitment agencies, it's hilarious. So there was all those kind of quotes, but one of the things that really came up over and over again, that's okay, you can pay double, was the term leadership. And looking for leaders within their business. And it made me think about when I was a nap pharmaceuticals, which is the company I used to work for in pharma. What makes a leader? Because when you've got the size, when you've got like a thousand people or a couple of thousand employees, you can spend the effort and you've got the resources to spend time on growing your own leaders within your company. You've got that time to do that. If you've got 10 people in your work agency, or 20 people, or 30, that's harder. That's really hard. And then you've got to think about what makes a leader. Now, all the things I'm going to talk about today are pretty much taken from the things I learned at SNAP down in Cambridge. So, they have a leadership programme that they called it. To remind me of some of this stuff that I'm going to put up here, I had to call up somebody I used to work with chasing up and getting to send me some of the documents because I couldn't find them anymore. I'm not working there. They had different aspects of leadership. I'm going to come on some of these a bit later on how they apply within our industry. But, some things here about intellectual capacity, you might have various ideas of what that means already. So, we'd like to get down into these areas, and there's some more as well. So, there's all these different aspects. If you really want somebody to be a leader within your business, someone to actually take your new staff, your new people who are new to Drupal, who are new to development, who are new to all those things, and help them grow. How are you going to manage that so that they become your next leader in your company? Because that's cheaper than trying to get it externally. You can grow them yourselves and you can make the most of that. Getting them externally is expensive and hard and guesswork. So, we've said those aspects and the things that you need to be able to do so that you've got great people, but you've got your small company. You're never going to get the chance. You're not going to be able to do it very easily as it is. You can do best efforts, etc. But lots of community that help and really help. It might be that you can use the rest of the community to let these people practice and learn things. You can spend time giving them the opportunity to work with people through mentoring, core contribution, and so on. It gives them the chance to go and use and practice and learn the skills that make them great leaders. Going back to some of those things that we were talking about then, if we think about people coming along and acting and giving them the opportunity to get involved in mentoring, other people within the community use their skills. All that. I said about the intellectual capacity earlier on. Unless more than just, how do I do PHP? This is actually a wider thing than that. This is things like, have they got the organisational understanding of Drupal to the Drupal community and the way Drupal works to be able to put people in the right connections. So we're talking here, do they know people? Can they understand how to take a problem that they are having and get other people to understand the problem that they're having and to then get them involved in helping and doing the thing. Being able to say, ah, to solve this, I need these three people to work together and being able to arrange that. That's organisational savvy. That being able to have that strategic insight, being able to see the whole of your business and therefore an example of that would be to see the whole of the Drupal community and being able to see how that works together. They learn that through talking to other people. You need them to talk outside of the small little group within your company, within your agency, needs them to talk wider. The best way they're going to do that is by being involved in things like mentoring and contribution. Drive is, well, I kind of know what drive is. People who get results hold themselves accountable. That's a great thing. If people are actually getting involved in project-led initiatives within Drupal in actually in the community rather than just doing their work as well, give them that opportunity to get involved in things that are going on, initiatives. Give them that chance to do that. Help them grow and become the leader that you want. Within your business. I really wish I got one of those particular things now. Honestly it was an interesting one. Being able to communicate openly, I can't really get any more open than the issue cube. It really is open on sometimes and honest. But it's also how you behave within things like the issue cube is really important. You can see the people who are mentoring others and the leaders within the Drupal community because of how they actually write things in the issue cube. They don't write, but they're also capable of breaking on this news, telling people hard news. It has to be done. I know Jess has broken all your patches today. Because we're changing how arrays are written in the coding standards. So that's hard news. That means a lot of people are going to have to go away and do work. Which has been pretty straightforward about it. And I'm honestly getting on. So it matters how you do that task. Respect goes both ways. You need to learn to respect people you're working with as well as just sort of reminding it. Being able to actually deliver on things you promise is part of respect. It's actually saying, if I'm going to say this, I need to deliver it to you because you're hanging on it. Quite often. Also something that has to take place within the Drupal community on a fairly regular basis. I'm also within businesses as well. And I've got it written down here because I want to get the words right. Makes appropriate decisions even when it makes them unpopular with others. Can sometimes be a difficult thing to learn. It's not something that's easy to do when you've only got a very small business. But it has to happen. It's something that people need to get good at doing. Give them the opportunity. Very much do give them the opportunity to do that. And to learn those things in the community. And to see people involved in the community. And especially in helping with the mentoring programme, if you like. Is a way that people can do that. I almost like that. I probably don't need to explain innovation because it's what we do all the time. But being able to get up there and do it is a big deal. It's important. It's also another thing to think about this. Or why to think about this. Innovation is something that you need to be prepared for as well. Say, in the Drupal community, something like Drupal 8 and the way that things have changed a lot. Things have changed a lot between Drupal 7 and 8. And being able to deal with and to embrace change is a great leadership skill. That you need to give people the opportunity to kind of learn. Change in a natural way is quite scary for many people. And you have to learn to deal with how you do that. It's something that is inevitable, but how you deal with it is a big deal. Give people the opportunity outside of the things that you do in your business to get on with that type of stuff. Passion. There's plenty of people within the Drupal community that certainly have passion demonstrating energy and enthusiasm. But it's also aspiring to develop and enhance your own performance and the performance of others as well. The actual want and need to be better is part of this. And it's also been the want and need to bring that out in others matters. And the people skills. If you're in a very small company, I did need to ask a general size to say it before I started, but I forgot. Sometimes it can be very hard for people to learn that type of stuff. They can sit in the corner and not really get involved in decisions. And have to do that brocering that needs to take place in a wider group to actually achieve that. Giving them the chance to seriously get involved in things in the Drupal community, contributing and mentoring particularly, is a way that they can practice those things. Sometimes they'll get it wrong, sometimes they'll get it right and hopefully they'll learn over time. But they've got to get it. It will never happen if they don't have the opportunity to practice. It's something that we are as a group of people within the contribution area we're getting better at slowly. And it's something that I think those of us that get a chance to be involved outside of a small agency type thing, get more chance to do. I think I very much want to encourage people to do it. So, there's all those things that Drupal community and getting people involved in mentoring and so on, can give you, but we need people to start. We need people to take the opportunity and see contribution and particularly mentoring as not something that... There's a company owner here. Anybody? Yeah? I imagine quite a lot of company owners. When we talk about Drupal contribution, we talk about co-sprints and we talk about that type of thing, think of it as something that they're giving back to Drupal. Like it's a duty, shall we say. I very much see it the other way around. I very much see it as something that the Drupal community is giving back to the companies. Because it's giving them chance to get together like this was taken in Dublin as well. This is the group of people who volunteered to help out as mentors on the Friday co-mented sprint in Dublin. And work really hard. They were a fantastic group of people. And the thing is, they thought they were going and giving something, but the reality was they were getting so much more back. What they were getting back was working with those teams that they did, working with people they'd never met before. They were making connections, professional connections. They were being seen visibly as someone who kind of knows something about Drupal. It's important things, so they got back and the companies they worked for, there's a few people there that work for different companies, and were getting something back as well, because they were getting back bigger people than they went away. Now, I particularly bring in Friday up because one of the hardest things, I must say, we were kind of working as a couple of sprint leads on the Friday, well all week actually. And it's quite frustrating that we've got the opportunity on the Fridays at Drupalcom to do the mentored course sprint where there will be people who are coming to get involved in the community for the first time. We have this opportunity to do so much more, so much with them. The hardest thing is having those people to mentor them, to take them on, is so many companies are booking flights for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday at Drupalcom. Just for the sessions.  This is the biggest part, okay, the Friday. It's a place where people will get to do something they probably won't have done before. Be that, because it's the first time getting involved in a sprint, it's the second time when they actually might even do something useful, or it's the third time when they come along and they say, hey, I've done this before, I'll mentor. And we will run them through what we want them to do. They don't just jump in, we do a little bit. And they will walk away feeling I've done something pretty epic, I think it was a pretty amazing time, wasn't it? They will walk away with more contacts, they will walk away having learned a few of those skills, or improved, or practised some of those skills I was talking about earlier. They will have made connections sideways as well between their other peers in the mental group. It's a big deal. How do we take that forward? I think the minimum I want you to walk away with today is thinking, if I'm sending a staff to DrupalCon, I definitely want them to go on Friday. If that's the minimum everyone does here today, I've succeeded. But how can we make it better? How can we take it forward then? As a Drupal company, can you help? Because you're getting a lot back from it. If you're getting your staff to get involved in mentoring, you're getting something from that. You're definitely getting something from that because they're growing as people. So if you take your non-senior people and they're getting involved in Drupal mentoring, you're making them into people that you're going to have as your senior staff in a year or two's time. You're gaining. That's a hell of a lot of recruitment agency money that you've just saved. I don't know all the answers. This is the first time I've done this. I don't know what happens next. But I do know, I do know, we keep saying come to the code state of the community. I do know that, and it matters. We now have the code. We have to replay. It's fabulous. It's nearly fabulous. But we're getting pretty good with it. You've been seeing it this weekend. You know it's good. I think it's time we started spending a bit more time on that. I'm thinking about the people because Drupal isn't just the code. It is how you lot work together because nobody in this building today knows all of Drupal. OK, Daniel might. No one can know everything there is to know about everything. You need to interact. You need other people. You need your senior staff. You need your junior staff. You need people that are going to take things on. People that are going to bring that inspiration, that innovation, that leadership into your company. We need to grow them now. That's the next bit because Drupal is more than just the code. I'm just going to shout out an idea now because it's the only thing that comes to mind. It's maybe something that we need to start thinking about. We've got camps out there now. Camps that concentrate on code. We've got camps that concentrate on business things. I think it's time maybe we started thinking about activities. It's not necessarily camps. I just put mental camp up there as an example. I've got no more planning than that by the way. I don't start thinking I'm going to have a date. I think we need to start thinking about what it is. And how we start to grow the people within Drupal. Because that's something that we can do as a community that is very hard for individual companies to do on their own. We all need it when every single company has the same needs. But for one company of say a dozen or 20 or 30 people, that's really hard. That's really really really hard. So let's do it together. Let's start thinking about how we work together to help start making those leadership bits and pieces that help grow staff. But rather than just trying to do it on our own, let's talk about it together and take it from there. I think that's something that we can start now. Largely... I'm a bit fast aren't I? Largely that's all I was going to say. I wanted to give a lot of time at the end for questions. Discussion largely disguised as questions. Because I'm not going to answer anything. But I will take answers from the floor as well instead. I can't give you answers. I don't know the answers. I know this is something that I care about. But I don't know what the answers are yet. I'm going to say something silly like Mentor Camp. So that's all I'm going to say. I know I've just kind of blown you something and just shown you no code or anything like that. It literally is a case of something that I wanted to say. Definitely do not forget Friday matters at Drupalcom. Get in your staff there. Give them the opportunity to grow. Encouraging them to go to the Friday.  Go to the Friday because it's free. I didn't say that. Friday's principle free. Did you not know that? I know someone could kill me. But no. It's a big deal. Say get them to Friday. I would love. I'll think about this afterwards and try and figure out something. If anybody wants to get involved in trying to work out how we can get some leadership stuff together. And I know the person who wrote all that stuff for now. Has actually just got turned into a consultant doing it for himself as a business. So I'm sure I can talk him into helping us. But. I want to start that conversation now. And are there any questions? Oh yes. I'm really inspired by what you say. I have a company. My biggest challenge is actually getting people to engage with this. You know they co and they do that kind of stuff. But the biggest barrier is the community process. And feeling confident with engaging with the community process. So when you say mentor camp. It's not really a C idea at all. I think it's absolutely fantastic. And when you say let's start now. I think let's start right now. And put something like that together. Because I've got people who I want to put on it. I put myself on it. I myself have experienced friction with engaging with the community process. And lots of full starts. And it's about kind of hooking up with mentors. And dealing with confidence issues. And stuff like that. And I really want to do it. That's great to hear. I think that I completely recognise what you're saying about lots of full starts. I think that looking back at my own contribution journey shall we call it. I had a couple of full starts. Where I just couldn't work out what was going on. It was all weird. And it was because I went to Front End United. In Copenhagen. Was that three years ago? Something like that. Four. God. Thanks. I don't really feel all of that. And there. There was actually a lot of things that went wrong in the camp. And lots of wasn't charged. But it kind of held together in a really kind of really amazing way. On what we ended up doing was. This time when literally there was about 20 of us in a room on a big long table. And all we did for a whole day was sprint. But because I was sat in between. Lauri was down the end. I was sat between Christina and Christine from Spain. I can't remember who it might have been. No, Lauri was down the end. I can't remember who was to my right. But I was sat there. And these are people I looked up to. And how they treated me that day. With respect. And actually encouraging. And belief in me.  Mattered. And it totally transformed my confidence. That worked. So. Fits and starts are okay. It's just creating that natured environment. It's just creating that natured environment. To get started. And to do that. We need to make sure that people are capable of doing the nurturing. That's why I'm thinking something where we spend time working with mentors and make mentors. Have the skills they need to do that. Yeah, that's kind of what I'm talking about. But yeah, let's start. Anybody else? Anybody else? Anybody else? Anybody else? Anybody else? It's a really interesting topic. Yeah. Personally, I always believed and still believe of training your own pair. Instead of going anywhere and finding a really good... Oh, absolutely. Because when you train someone to be your... That's why I've decided to be your pair. Not to be a leadership. Because what we want to do is a community. It's not like a period. I love the thing of training. And can you make your point into having the mentor come? If you see the numbers or a contest, like a group of contests, this one, we have 35 people talking and 465 just listening. There is no interaction at all. The interaction we have is on the corridors, on the spin pool, which is normally empty just on the Fridays. So, this is my opinion. This is the community with the contest. Never. Unless you go to the spin pool or you don't attend any of the sessions. Because a personal relation, the system is a bit of a time of interaction. We don't have it. It's amazing. I thought about it. I was there and I thought, why don't we have the sprint which is really important in the middle of the conference? Yeah, I said that before. I thought about it. Maybe we'll stop on the afternoon on the whole night. Then the next day we have 40 rooms of people calling or mentoring or just chatting or the next day. Okay, I want to learn. I've got this room there teaching something. It's on the workshop. In the middle of the conference. It's because the company is going to pay for that. I know that. This is the problem. It's like this. This is training. This is under the sun. This is training to come off the training budget. Particularly on the sheet. They're all happy. Soon as you put code and stuff like that in. That's out of the box in HR. They're all happy. That's why they all have the same form. That's why all conferences are in our box. I don't agree. If we put that as the reason it's been said, is because when you do something pairing with someone else, you learn much more. That is actually a two way thing as well. The mentor and the mentee both learn. That's why particularly for that type of scenario you're discussing very much is how we sell the mentoring. That's almost exactly what I'm trying to say. Is how we sell mentoring. It's not about, it's not about, it's not about, it's not about, it's not about you as a company giving something to Drupal. It's not. It's about Drupal giving something to you and it's explaining that to the accountants on what we don't do at the moment is do that well enough. As a community, because the companies are doing it wrong. What we should be saying is, look, we're doing your training. Yeah? When people are coming to contributions, we're doing your training. The good thing about Drupal community, but first of all, actually the fact that we have the sprints and have the mentoring is something that's already quite specific for Drupal. And I think that we have so many camps that are organised by different people in different ways is the point to try this out. One of the ones that have so much top-down organised by the Drupal association needs it as a fundraising event. So I think trying to change Drupal when and how it works is not a place to start, but trying to try out the different camps. And one thing I think that is also necessary is because you spend a lot of time preparing for the sprint and mentoring sprints as well and finding issues for people to work on. And quite often there's a lack of time to do in a day just to understand how the issue queue works, that you should say in a comment that you're working on something. And it needs lots of small issues. So I think it's also down to lots of people to make sure that when there is a sprint coming up to make sure that they don't say all right and fix that one after time then they have enough time that you make an issue to say this haptase needs changing or there's a typing error there. I mean that's an issue as simple as it sounds but it means somebody leaves the scene having figured out how to do an issue fixed it and get it committed. Always leave it as it is. And the first time you see yourself in a commit message is just nice. And I tell you what seeing your name in a commit message for the first time is nothing compared to seeing somebody you have mentored name in a commit message. Actually mine's here. Where was it? I'm stood down. Because I couldn't stay till the end and heard that yours had got committed but I was in tears. It was weird. It was really bad. I was actually sat there crying when I found out. When I... I think we should talk from the camera. When I talked with Alex and I said I used to do track meetings in Italy every year. It's a big community of folks. People... They find it difficult on anything. It's so IT. It can be data. It can be a video house from space. Just curiosity. For each of the meetings we have a platform where we can chat. Sometimes it's an ISV channel and sometimes it's a channel. It's just a poll. You go there and write a name and then I'll be here. We do have, on my RC, the Drupal Mentoring channel. It shows that which I don't have on my RC. Which is for mentors to talk with each other. Which is maybe a start towards this. What I want to do is take that much further and give mentors the chance to grow as mentors. Because that also has the added bonus that we're helping our companies. Because that's what your company is full of.  But it should be. Anything else? Just a question of interest. If you have any plans, if you're ready to have those, just the statistics on how many people on the ratio of how many people go to Drupal compared to the ratio of people actually attending a spring. It does vary a lot. You tend to get, Drupal Con has more than you might think. More than you might think people sprinting. The rooms, particularly on the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, they are busy. I cannot remember off the top of my head now what the numbers are. We do have numbers and they'll be taking more numbers in Baltimore. One thing to bear in mind in Vienna is there won't be sprinting at the weekends this year. The DA won't be providing room for sprinting at the weekends. So the sprinting will be in a much more concentrated format Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and then the Corvent are meant to sprint on Friday. So things are changing around quite a lot. Quite a lot has changed about Vienna to be honest. Just thinking about today, walking past the sprinting room a few times. I've never really been tight to go in there. I just want to do something we can do just to stick outside the door and go like this is what's expected of you. It'll take this much time. I think for the last couple of years in London myself and Emma have been kind of dragging people in there a little bit. Not literally on occasion. Nine livers have been able to do that this week. I've been doing this and I'm not here tomorrow so I've actually stayed just in case anybody hasn't noticed. So everybody who's in there is probably self-starting on about the description on the sprint. Maybe we should make an effort or a mentor set up for next year. That would be a great thing to do. Maybe you'd like to volunteer. I was just going to agree actually that it's a pretty fancy and simple marketing but I think that the sprint in London haven't really been at the highest level of thing for the last couple of years to be honest. Me heckre will find in the room last year. It wasn't my peach. It was my peach. I did. So it's a big deal. It's a good deal. I'm not going to say it's a big deal but I'm going to say it's a big deal. I'm going to say it's a big deal. So it's kind of one of those. Different camps want to work in different ways. I'm not on the camp organising committee so I can't comment further. But I think that it's something that if I was organising a camp I would find it very important. It depends, doesn't it? I'm getting the wind-up message. So thanks pretty much. I hope not to have told you everything but to make things start working in your minds. I would love to hear your thoughts. I'll tweet about this. I'm sure it will be on the thing. Let me know what you think. Let me know if it's something that as a business is interesting to actually take this further and start thinking about how we can do something that benefits everyone and start thinking about how we can do proper training of mentors, training of people in the community rather than just within companies. I hope there's something in it I really do. That's something that matters to me. Thanks very much. How much money did I make? Shall we unlock the doors?


Freedom today. I wanted to talk to you about this one thing that this other guy that looks like me has to say so Uh, you know take it away me. I mean not me to totally totally not me Freedom today. I wanted to talk to you about a freedom partner who hasn't done a face reveal But I met up with him here in Wisconsin actually And uh, he and I are want to talk to you but since he's not done a face reveal I figured I would help him keep his identity a secret And I brought him something from asia that I think might help say hello to roman apples Go ahead. He's gonna put that on and we're going to talk to a freedom partner who has done podcasts And uh and other miscellaneous media. So come on over here rom I've got you didn't expect me on this channel. No, no not at all. Let's go. He's done the mgn podcast we've Spoken once or twice about maybe doing a freedom podcast Uh, I don't think it's possible. It may not be possible. They want me they want me Doing things outside of the castle rather than doing them on the castle Rum runs a very adult show not that it's not that it's overly bad or anything like that It's just you know, it's it's not necessarily always family friendly So we're trying to see if we can find some middle ground there All right. Well anyways, are you seriously trying to find middle ground? Yes Okay, we'll we'll go back. Um, so for those of you who can't see my breath right now It's as cold as it could be we're in wisconsin I don't know why we're in wisconsin and we just are we're lost by the way So we're there's no jokes here We're actually gonna go see if we can find something else to do And see if we can find a new location and talk to you because it's cold. It's very cold All right next clip freedom So we are actually sitting here I'm sitting here with roman apples We're sitting here with me Anthony. So I'm actually going to go ahead. You can you can sit right in your chair there There we go So we've been sitting here. We've been talking about everything out of the sun Roman apples has a video game coming out. I do have a game coming out now. You're not the developer of this game Absolutely not. I cannot even develop a chair what I what I am what I did do Is I provided voice work for a video game. It's called perdition wakes you can find it on youtube We have some developmental videos out right now And there's even a video out right now of my own audio Being what the voiceovers I did it was being edited and altered a little bit So if you want to look at that I I'd very much appreciate it. I I've been working on it for I think a year and I just now finally got the lay down the audio I'm really excited about it personally. It's my it's the first time I've been in a game that's been you know Really major to me and guys I talk about video games all day and now I'm in one I hope my game doesn't suck I really do Anthony like what am I going to do so you're going to give me a link for the description I'll absolutely give you a link for the description. All right to the to the channel and everything now Rum you have about a thousand subscribers. I have a I have a little over a thousand subscribers now Yes, I do. How many how many people now you've been doing this podcast for how long I've been doing the part the rum and apple show I've been doing for Three years an uncivilized banter. I've been doing for a little over a year and not real quickly that just came from I renamed across the pond to uncivilized banter because fans wanted it that way. So I let them vote And across the pond was a different company that I was working with so once that company and I parted ways That show part of ways that we created uncivilized banter. I know that was long But it is what it is. So you've got on your show. You've got you've got uncivilized banter, which is one series Uncivilized banter is one series and then you've got the rum and apple show and you've got rummatorials Yes, I got rummatorials, um, which we won't spoil for you. It's it's an interesting listen Be sure to let check the link in the description. It's visual to check that out. It's it's yeah So a lot of what you do is is audio is mainly audio Sometimes there's an audio visual aspect. Yeah, but rummatorials are really the thing that has the most visual aspect to it It absolutely has the most visual aspect. It's it's it's what I do. It allows me to work different creative muscles when it comes to scripting when it comes to Me being able to actually do live action segments that I previously was unable to do And now that I'm able to do that I want to kind of I want to expand what what the rummatorials were they used to be just Descripted thoughts that I had That when I read them out loud, well, they were kind of funny and some of it wasn't insightful at least to my imagination It was and so now that I put a visual element on it I I now have my own narrative running throughout the own rummatorials So and I won't spoil too much on that but I have a I have a narrative running through the rummatorial as the rummatorials proceeding on So for people who kind of like psychological stuff that in that is a little bit of intrigue You know, you should definitely check it out Okay, you know, um, okay. So now you've done stuff for other companies.  Yes, I did do the mgn podcast Um, you do two of your own. Yes, I do. I do. I've done I did uh, I've done voiceover work for you and some of your own skits I've worked with uh, I've worked with different members in the freedom community and various projects And uh, honestly, I I would love to do more with freedom to be truthful with you Because honestly, I and and forgive me for being I guess up front with this but man freedom needs a podcast Ever since I joined freedom and Due to circumstance. I saw other podcasts not be successful I just felt that maybe not me But at the very least I could promote an idea a pitch an idea to you guys that you guys Would find digestible and it's plausible. Yeah I just I'm just saying right now. I would I would love to do the podcast We're not adverse to the idea, but there is a certain level of um, absolutely You know nuance that has to be uh, observed there, but um So now you also did a podcast for blackout media Yeah, I did I did the hour of blackout podcast of blackout media now blackout media is gone now That was when subnetworks were allowed Yeah, back when youtube allowed those when youtube allowed subnetworks I was doing a podcast called now or blackout It's where we provided network updates and it was literally just a podcast For the partners specifically for them talking directly with them about the network and Updates and different things. I remember we had minecraft servers. We had we had audience members who came out to the podcast We did uh partner questions and this was every podcast Yeah, and I would break be about an anime addiction that I will not go into You know, I can't go into that But no, that's what that's what I did and I know I I know I have the experience for this I know I could do it It's just you know wild card maverick type situation. You look so odd with your with with the mask on. I'm sorry See, here's the thing Anthony has seen me and he understands that I am a handsome handsome man Unfortunately, this is the reason I don't have a face reveal because if I if I if I took this off not now all the girls would be All the all the girls all the men everybody All genders would flock I would flock I'd hit you with a blue steel and It doesn't translate with the man All right, all right, so um keeping this back on track now you um You do a podcast you syndicate that to itunes. I syndicate the rum and apple show an uncivilized banter onto itunes Yes, so now You said that you have that set up through your wordpress website to automatically feed content to itunes, right? Yes, it is it is available in that direct method. Hmm mysterious. How you knew that pivotal information, sir Now the reason I bring that up is because a lot of people You know may have the impression that that's a complicated task that it's hard to do um Would you say that it's equally as easy for somebody who does like youtube commentaries to just submit the audio? Well, like just the audio portion because that is essentially kind of like a podcast, right? Like if they're doing commentaries with gameplay It is comparable to a podcast. However, I think there's a different element. Um podcast well, okay I'm not I'm definitely not the guy to Determine what a podcast actually is a podcast by definition is audio format Right and you listen to it and it's usually an hour or whatever however the link this But if you want to do that, it's easily accomplishable. I mean the method I use is through wordpress, okay? So and and that's how you get your xml feed and how you put it into the podcast application That allows you to connect it then you have to wait for the approval process take up to two weeks There's a litany of there's a litany of other things that we could we could probably do a separate video on or something If people really had an interest they can comment somewhere there Maybe not in there. Why are you pointing to my crotch when you do that? That's just creepy Don't look You and I did a podcast we did we actually did two hours worth of material Which you'll probably release the whole thing on itunes and then splice that up in videos Yeah, now. Why do you do that? Why yeah? Why do you like why do you do the full form over on itunes and then miniature versions on youtube? Well, it's um It's kind of a simple boring answer The rum and apple show is predominantly an itunes podcast because I wanted something exclusive to the website and exclusive to itunes Now uncivilized banter It came across in a different way its creation was different It started as a youtube podcast and I wanted to remain loyal to my co-host and I kept it on youtube But he now wants it on itunes So we now transition that to itunes as well But it always remains a youtube first podcast like when we're done It automatically goes up and then it goes to itunes later Okay, like so there's just different I guess What's it called um priority is taken on certain podcasts So now my my assumption was that you broke it up into topics and smaller bits I know you know so that you could get more traffic via search and related videos Well, some people don't have the time or some people don't have the want To listen to a full hour to a full two hours because some people just don't have that ability to for whatever reason Yeah, so if I cut it up and I cut up good segments that I like or I have a new segment coming out Best of uncivilized banter best of the roman apple show We just grabbed really funny moments or some moments that really made sense and whatever and put it into one clip or That like I have been doing we take clips about talking me talking about various topics or my co-host or whatever I have on like you've been featured in plenty of them been on the podcast a lot Check it out on youtube, but That's really what it is and the reason we do I do it is because I think I think it's easier for people because attention spans are different and people Have a harder time watching longer content So if you cut up the the video clips they can find exactly what they want If they want if they're interested they can go finish the full podcast later Yeah, so it's just it's just an option for people It makes sense So it's easier and then you know they don't have they don't they really don't have to think too much about it Now you're a dog owner. I am a dog owner. Yes Um, tell me a little bit about your dog. My dog is her name is brie She looks like brian griffin from family guy Anthony can confirm it. She looks like brian griffin. There's no way around it I'm unaware of what her exact breed is what I was told that she is a boxer pit mix But I think she's a run because she's really tiny But she's 40 pounds. She's cute.  She's a Oh, yeah, but she she is she is a A handful from time to time if I say it politely No, I love my dog. I I love my dog. I've always owned dogs I think it's um, I think I think animals have a drastic effect on people In a very positive way, but yeah, no, I have a dog. Definitely. Yeah, uh, let's see. What what else? Uh, oh Uh, so we were talking earlier about spread shirt. Oh, yeah Spread shirt. Yeah, we're we're running like at the top of the the counter here So we got to wrap this clip up. Yes, sir But uh, you're gonna have some merch up on spread shirt that you found through the freedom dashboard here Yes, I did. I went through the freedom dashboard and I'm working with spread shirt The reason we don't have anything up right now is because we have three custom designs We have a rum and apples t-shirt an uncivilized banter t-shirt And we have an immortality not mourn t-shirt, which is a video game skit comedy series I do with my co-writer and the co-founder John nova aka mr. Hello diction But we will have those designs up and we will absolutely absolutely use the spread shirt And it actually is kind of really useful the freedom dashboard has a lot more to offer than I originally thought Because for the first year, I didn't really even use it and then like through a little bit of prodding through partners They're kind of like hey This is spread shirt and I go Oh pray tell what is a shirt spread they go no wrong wrong spread shirt It's like when people told me told me about vine and I said I said, what's a vine? What do you what are you climbing things like your weirdos? What's going on here? Just um, man, but no spread shirts though. I like it. All right, so we're gonna go ahead and let you go And uh, and we'll see you in the next clip Oh god, it's cold. It's cold. It's cold. It's cold Oh Freedom uh, so I uh am still uh hanging out with ramen apples We're still lost Link in the description down below. We got back. You don't know where we are. We got back out of the car We got back out of the car. We are at another little stop here and we can't gas station We can't get back hold anybody. We can't get back to illinois somebody freedom help us Uh, we are getting a lot done in the way of just kind of interacting and talking about things. So Um, if we see any more developments, we'll let you know absolute developments Yeah, develop am I an assignment? No, it's like photographs. You got to develop them. Oh, yeah, okay Let's develop things So we're a buff. So we're a buffalo wild wings buffalo wild wings. Um, I had a thought You had thought yeah, that's the first I know right What if buffalos actually had wings because hear me out? I would not trust Like 400 500 pound bison running around with the ability to fly Could you imagine hunting could you imagine hunting that it would become 50 times more dangerous There'd be people aiming in the air shooting in the sky And then you'd have 500 pound dead bison Falling to the ground. Hmm. I see him trending doom. Yeah, why don't we go? Why do we come here? I don't know I don't know either food food All right food. That's why we came and we're hungry. So, um, so we uh wanted to also Uh talk to you about a couple other things Um, just basically how important it is to do collaborations Um rum has pretty much been he's based his entire Um, you know podcasting spiel around collaborations finding co-host finding people to talk to finding people with interesting viewpoints things like that Um, it's it's vitally important. Uh, and it is something you can do no matter what kind of content you create So, you know, we we were talking and you know about youtube and and social media and other things and we felt the need to point that out because Rum being someone who does it all the time Um has an interesting viewpoint on that collaboration is important now I I will fully say that sometimes you have to do things on your own. You have to commit to certain projects on your own however Even in doing that you're still collaborating with people So if you make a short film or you do a gaming collaboration of some type You're still working together in some respect So collaboration is important because you get different looks and you get different mentalities and ideology on aspects on templates or takes or Just formulas that work and other that have worked before that you might not have thought of So collaboration is really good. It also benefits. It also benefits Anthony and I like we do podcasts together and it clearly benefits him his audience and my audience You're able to put more eyeballs On who on your content and that's at the end of the day. That's kind of what you want You want to put yourself out there on as many forms as possible With as many eyeballs and his ears and and eyes you can get on it eyeballs and eyes You see that could you imagine if human beings had like two pairs of eyes? Like one on the front one in the back I thought they always got their eye on you. I think moms already have that Yeah, but that's like an invisible kind of mythic mystical power Yeah, that's true Like my mom used to sneak up behind me when I was doing suspicious things as a teenager and she would like ninja me But she could she like she could surprise me and be silent Well, she did tell you if you kept playing with it that you would go deaf Is that why I got a hearing problem? What? Oh, sorry, um So hopefully that that joke went over the head of many people. Um, anyway, so They're slightly perplexed on the The um the overarching concept that we want to talk about collaboration is important It is and it's for the most part, it's super simple It's super easy once you get it figured out when you once you get figured out what kind of people you can easily work with Which is I think it's important chemistry is very important the biggest ones You know if you force collaborations if you force working together with people You're gonna hate it and it's gonna show through So work with you'll find people in the community freedom forums Uh freedom discord, but that's probably one of the easiest places Seriously the freedom forums. It's when I first started personal story about using the freedom forums for real when I first started I got a majority of those first 10 15 interviews all from those freedom forums I put it on to the collab to collab a little tab that they got. I don't know what it's called really I'm an old guy leave me alone But I put it out there and said I wanted people to come on who are youtubers and give get different looks and What their thoughts and their ideology was about video games and sure enough I got a good amount of responses and You can have those results because I was pretty clear and concise about what I wanted That's a thing that I see in the community. Sometimes people Don't know how to get to the meat of what it is. They're asking for what they need Well, okay, uh, the best way I can go about it is look It's it's almost as if you're just Keep it like it's like a wanted add Yeah, the the quick who what when where why and how that's all you need You don't need like a four and a half page dissertation of why you need this to happen You just said you could just say let's say for example You're doing a machinima based series and you're utilizing grant that's out of five All you need to say in that ad is help wanted gta 5 body actors Right and in that description you say I need help with gta 5. There's some people over there and they're looking real suspicious Hey, pretty lady. How are you there? They're looking at the guy in the anime mask Hey, it's it's not my fault that handsome men are looked at and endeared upon throughout the galaxy Collaboration is important. So for example, let's say you're working on something It's gta 5 and when you fill that out you put in the title gta 5 body actors wanted in the description I'm working on a machinima. I require body actors this many body actors These are the days I need you and and we can up we can work out scheduling Disclose very importantly disclose if you're gonna pay them or not If you're not gonna pay them be sure to to promote and credit their channels and descriptions and annotations and links and Recommended channels. There's all sorts of ways to Work together and it always benefits everybody and and once again, I will I go back to chemistry because If you don't have chemistry if you're cladding with someone you don't like It is very reflective in the final product So be kind of be kind of screen your people so to speak Now if it's body acting that's one thing But if you're if you're doing a youtube video and you don't like the person that's reflective Yeah, and that doesn't help anybody So there is a little bit of filtering you got to do but overall I I don't know if we went through specific guidelines But I mean there's some there's some tips in there that can assist you Yeah, and and don't be afraid to put it out there That's the number one thing, you know, you're never gonna get anything done if you don't post it if you don't ask That's that's I don't know if anybody might have that issue But if anybody's unsure and and you're having trouble and you don't know if people might care about your project Well, how do you know just put it out there and see if you get any bites I I made a whole I made a whole podcast Of the fact that I like talking about video games If you guys have collaborative effort you want to put out there you have dreams and passions that you have It's accomplishable You just have to be willing to have the dedication to understand that this could be a longer process that you once anticipated But to expedite it a little bit Collaborations and over time you can build your own network You can build your own network of within your friends. That's what I've done essentially Anthony's my friend. I work. He comes on the podcast. We have a good time I've worked with the new a numerous amounts of other people like rose shoot gaming I've worked with uh my boy jacob, you know people know cobra tv You work you worked with a couple of people over there at tube buddy Yeah, I worked with andrew can from tube buddy actually andrew can from tube buddy shout out to our boy I he was just on a podcast on civilized banter not too long ago. He was there taking listener calls having a good old time So and and and it all comes back from the time that we've known each other just a long time now We were just friends and we talk and we we all have our own separate entities and aspirations of what we want to do And in doing that we've collaborated together and they all come on the podcast I'm working with can on a film right now on a short film. It's a motivational film I'm not going to reveal much more, but that's a little teaser Right. It's just like the video game thing. It didn't fall into my lap. It came the passing because I kept in contact with people who were business minded and they saw me And I just happened to be the person in the role of dex that they wanted and you can build that too It just takes time and it takes effort and you got to be patient And that's probably something hard to do too. This is beyond collaboration now This is more just things you got to remember when you're doing this stuff. Yeah, you know, and I don't know I mean, it's probably one of the more important aspects about you know Uploading schedule to probably yeah, probably uploading schedule. We talked about that a lot That's important. But one thing that I see people doing a lot with that is they will They will put out non content in a way to keep a schedule filler content Filler content that's obviously filler just to keep up with the schedule that they arbitrarily created Which you know, I think it's a problem I think that can negatively impact a small channel doing it early Yeah, like if you're a huge channel, if you got like two million subscribers always like it no matter what Right, but I think if you're a small channel, you want to set The biggest thing about running a youtube channel or doing anything creative is that you have to put Who you are Inside that product, right? I do a podcast I put who I who I am deep down inside in that podcast, you know what I'm saying? I just think overall it's something you have to do in order to make it successful But it is what it is, right? So, uh, we're gonna go ahead and let you go Thank you so much for watching this video I think we're probably gonna cut off for now because we've we've talked about a lot in this video We're about 20 minutes or so easily. Um, so, uh till next time No If you want to see more of rum, uh, uh, like we said, I just filmed a podcast with him It'll probably be over on his channel link in the description down below to that Uh, and we'll also talk, uh, probably more because I probably do his show What like twice three four times a year or something like that easily easily. Um, it's not a little more. Yeah Anyway, till next time, don't forget to like subscribe.  I'm gonna shoot it back over to myself. Julius, send it back over to me Till next time, don't forget to like subscribe and do all those things that make us love our jobs Also be awesome to yourself and amazing to each other. Bye freedom family Thank you for watching another freedom video. If you'd like to connect with us on our socials, be sure to check out Whoa our facebook. Oh Our twitter. Whoa Facebook groups. Whoa Of course our support twitter. Whoa And of course the forums. Whoa I'm so gonna drop these. Anyways, thanks for watching. Whoa


T.F. Update. Good afternoon folks, this is Steve Rhodes coming to you live from the shores of sunny Delray Beach, Florida. This is your 1 p.m. update until we have all the U.S. indices that we track trading to the upside. You've got the Dow up 112 points, three tenths percent, S&P a half a percent or 22, Nasdaq eight tenths, 127 points, one and three-quarters percent for the Russell 2000, 35 points the upside, semis are up about seven tenths or 23 points, gold is off 25 bucks, that's down one and a quarter percent, silver is off one and seven tenths or 42 cents, trading out at 24.77 lights, recruit off three bucks, 102.83 is the print there, natural gas down nine cents, and the 30-year treasure is up one tick, one and a half points out there, trading out at 1.4903. Let's go take a look at our nine panel market update chart. We begin by taking a look at the ES mini, ES mini. Today should be the TD9 count top, a little complete the pattern today. We see a close above today's high tomorrow, or really the next day, that'll tell us about a strong moment to move to the upside. But other than that, today should be, we should begin to see a top and a price pull back to about the 44, 38-ish type area out there. If we take a look at the spotball tunics, it says, hey, I don't even know what you guys are talking about. I'm below the 50-day exponents moving average and continue to head lower. That is always a bullish condition for the S&P 500, the NQ also in the bar following bar number nine. So it should complete a TD9 count top. Price should pull back to test support, maybe in the 14, 326 level out there. I don't know that we've gotten a signal just yet. In fact, I'm certain that we don't have a signal just yet, that that's going to come to fruition, meaning the top. We'll take a look at that during the Trader Zed Show. The US dollar index is consolidating with inside its daily profile, at least its old profile out there. Right now I've got the June contract. We're rolling from April to June. Price has pulled back and tested. The swing point, the swing point that I'm referring to is from March 16th. As long as that holds on the June contract, that's 1,940 cents out there. Silver also testing a swing point and rejecting it. That's at the 2455 level. The importance of those swing points is that they could, if we did see it closed below those levels, signal an A to B equals CD to the outside. That is not the pattern that we have in place as we speak right now. Lights Recruit is trading below the bottom of its daily profile. This would be day number two. So may retarget its most recent low. Although it's really tested, the top of that is rejected. That's March 15th level that we're taking a look at. Natural gas, attempting to form a new daily profile. I was supported $5.06 in resistance, 561 in the 30-year treasury, trying to regain the bottom of its daily profile. If it does close above 1,4807, could signal move up to the 1,5121 level. Folks, stay tuned for the Trader Zed Show. If you're off to start your Tuesday, have a terrific one. Thanks much for joining us. We'll look forward to seeing you again soon.


My perfect day-to-day activities, my ideal day-to-day activities, involves, you know, finishing up a paper. Like, actually today I was working on a couple of projects and trying to finish up a science paper. And that's, you know, the best part is actually having something come to fruition that I've been working on for a while. But for my particular position, I, you know, I don't get as much time to do that kind of thing. My typical day in my non-ideal world or my actual real world is attending a lot of meetings. You know, I attend staff meetings and I run a lab, so I hold staff meetings. But, for instance, right now we're going through things associated with the sequester. And so that's a lot of time spent on what are their new roles and how do those apply. And then I have to figure out how many people in my lab can travel and they can't travel. And so those are sort of the more mundane things that I end up having to do. But I also get to serve on committees outside of NASA and I, you know, in the solar physics community. I attend science meetings. So there's probably not a typical day, but, you know, overall is generally split between administrative work, approving time cards, that kind of thing, and some research and then, you know, being able to attend science meetings and presenting the research. So that's an important aspect of the science that I do is not just doing it but making sure that I'm getting out there and communicating it and especially as a NASA scientist because taxpayers are paying for us to do those and so they are owed, you know, the sort of end result, well, here's what you're getting for your money. So I do a lot of outreach as well, talking to kids at schools and that kind of thing.