DTA asks, what criteria would you suggest to determine whether a task or function is better executed on a permissionless blockchain as compared to a centralized system? Do you think permissioned blockchains are real blockchains? Do they have a role too? This is an interesting question, DTA. First of all, permissioned blockchains are blockchains. Sure, what they're not is open blockchains or permissionless blockchains. They are blockchains. They just don't have any of the interesting features that I think we find in open blockchains. One thing to understand is that some of the features that people ascribe to blockchains are actually not features of blockchains. They are features of open decentralized blockchains. For example, immutability, the ability to record something and have a guarantee that it cannot be changed even if all of the verifiers are being coerced into changing it. Bitcoin, for example, is a system that provides that immutability guarantee. Even if 100% of the miners wanted to change the blockchain and were being coerced to do so, they would still have to expend the proof-of-work energy in order to do that, or risk getting their blocks invalidated by the rest of the system. There is no shortcut to that. They still have to expend the energy. Proof-of-work creates immutability in that particular case, and the decentralized nature of the consensus algorithm makes it immutable. If you have a system of federated signers, a permissioned blockchain, or decentralized ledger technology, as it is sometimes called, or private blockchain, as it is sometimes called, then maybe you have 16 signers. These 16 signers are members of a coalition that are part of the participants in this group. Let's say it is 16 of the largest participants in a stock market or in a bank transfer network, and they are all federated signing. Well, you serve a subpoena to all 16 of them, and you tell them, you must change this transaction and make sure it never happens. So, you see, this transaction back in January was paid to WikiLeaks, and we don't like that. So, here is a court order that says that transaction never happened. Please amend your blockchain. Well, the federated signers can do that, and if they can do that, then under the law, they must do that, so it is no longer immutable. It is no longer censorship-resistant. It is no longer neutral. It is no longer borderless, because they are subject to the jurisdiction, these federated signers, of one state, or whichever states they are in, so they can't open it up. Of course, it is no longer permissionless, because they have to vet every participant. So, this is the issue here. Once you take out the decentralized nature of validation, the consensus algorithm, then a lot of the things you think blockchains do, which is give you censorship-resistant, neutral, permissionless, immutable transactions, go away. What you have is a distributed database that allows you to record transactions if the federated signers want to allow it. You have something that is not immutable, censorship-resistant, neutral, borderless, or permissionless anymore. Is that thing useful? That is an interesting question, because it depends on what you are trying to achieve. If the application you are trying to achieve doesn't need censorship-resistance or neutrality or borderless access or immutability, then yes, maybe it is useful. Of course, then you have the other challenge, which is that in an environment like that, a federated signing, you have the fundamental problem that the federated signers are usually competitors. Therefore, in any such environment, they are going to try to tweak the system to give each one of them maximum advantage. In a decentralized blockchain, the selfish approach, which is everyone acting purely in their self-interest, is the basis of the game theory that makes it secure, meaning that as long as everybody acts in their best interest, the system is actually fair, predictable, and secure, because those actions lead directly to fairness. That is how proof of work works. For example, it assumes that everyone will act purely in their self-interest in very selfish ways, but because they are constrained by the system, they are forced to operate it securely, because it is in their best interest. In a permission system, however, if the federated participants are all acting in their own self-interest, you have a problem. Because they can be identified, because they can be coerced, and because they have to participate in a collaborative manner, the incentives really get misaligned. You can see this every time you look at an industry trying to create common standards by committee, and they start off with good intentions. Let's make a new standard for how we do financial exchange protocols or whatever. As the participants get together, each one of them has a vision of what will be in their best interest, and they try to add that to the standard. The standard gradually gets more and more and more complex, because there is all of this jockeying for position. In the end, it is not really a standard. It is just a collection of the wish list and kitchen sink, a bike shedding that happened by all of the participants. These standards do not get applied in the real world, because they are too complex and there is too much opportunity for one party to take advantage of another. A classic thing you see in protocol development is where you get all of these big companies together to build a common standard. At the same time that they are sitting down at the table and proposing common aspects to the standard, they are lawyers in the background of filing patents for those same things in order to gain an unfair advantage. This happens all the time. It is why, over decades, the attempts to do common standards in banking continue again and again to collapse. They collapse because, whenever the standard is designed by committee, all of this jockeying for position results in a mess. Theoretically, at least, permissioned blockchains with federated signers based on a common standard would work. They would actually bring the industry together, create more collaboration, allow banks to have essentially faster and more fair networks for doing backend transactions. In practice, they never get there. The reason they never get there is because the squabbling and jockeying for position internally ends up creating either a terrible standard that does not serve anybody's needs, or a standard that nobody uses because they feel they will be at a disadvantage. Because the standard expresses somebody else's interests. We have seen this again and again, most recently with R3, and their efforts to create these standardized financial services blockchains. Again, all of these prototype implementations have not succeeded. We saw this with Internet protocols, too. TCPIP was not the obvious winner. Now, everybody is clear that the Internet is TCPIP, TCPIP is the Internet. But if you look back in the early 90s, the conversation was very different. People said TCPIP is going to be an interesting but edge case of the information superhighway, that will be primarily based on robust enterprise protocols like the ISO and OSI protocols, TP4, for example, and protocols like ATM, protocols like those proposed by IBM and Microsoft and others. This information superhighway would have a small corner, mostly of academics, which would use TCPIP. But the TCPIP wasn't really suitable for enterprise use because it didn't have enough features that the enterprise wanted. Where did we end up?  The Internet being TCPIP and only TCPIP, all of the other protocols you've probably never heard of, TP4 and ATM and the OSI stack that were proposed by the telecom companies. You don't run ISDN probably. All of these things went to the wayside. Why? Because in the end, the value came from the open interoperability of a protocol where no one had a distinct advantage. We're going to see the same thing happen with blockchains.


Hello and welcome to a new update for Dialogic. In the version 0.7 we have a lot of things. I removed some legacy files out of stuff that was from the previous versions. Now everything should be relevant to the current one. I added this amazing new theme tab which I will cover now. I also did some improvements into the characters tab. I added a context menu so you can remove characters or open the working directory from there. I also added the same kind of menu in the timelines. So if you saw my previous videos you will notice that this was not supposed to happen in the version 0.7 but I moved the timeline a little bit because a lot of people is impatient to start using it so this version brings it closer to that. And also because I don't think it makes sense to make the glossary first since most of the nodes are not working and the dialog node wasn't working exactly so I needed to get that in line. The timeline would look like this right now which is the same but in a different order and I'm still trying to get to version 1.0 by January or February. Let's open the dialog check tab and now you will see we have this new icon over here which is the theme which will have all the options available for you to use. Right now it's a little bit limited but I will keep adding stuff here so you can modify more stuff. The first option will be the font which you can pick one of the TRES files which you can generate in Godot. You can also change the color, let's say you want the color to be green for some reason and whenever you make a change here you can press on this preview changes button and a new dialog will pop up with the new changes that you have.  The text P which bigger means that each letter will take longer to appear in this case it's at 2 if we do it at 10 you see that the text is much slower but if we do it to 1 or 0, 1 is super fast and 0 is instant. You see that the animation resets there but so you can pick the speed that you like. Also shadows which you can enable here and select a color so if you want to add like a glow to your text you can do so. You see it surrounded you can also set the offset and you will see the offset there. I don't think a shadow suits this kind of dialog but that's okay. You can disable it and you will see it's gone. The background texture which is an image that will fill the entire dialog and I will chip some versions of it but you can do whatever you like. In this case I added them in addons, dialogic, images, background and you have these two versions. One white which is the default from previous examples and the black one which is the new one. Let's change to background 1 which is the bright one and you can see it changes. So let's change the color of the text, okay. And also the next indicator which you can change to whatever in this case we can change it to our favorite image. Just a good icon and we see it there. Next up is the box padding which is the space between the text and the box. In this case let's go back to zero so you can see how it will look like. You see the text is very close to that so if your image is need some extra spacing you can change it here this is vertical space so only it on top and then horizontal space only on the sides. And here is the action key. The action key, it will be one of the actions that you have defined in your project. As you can see you can add them or remove them like any other options like project settings, input map and here you can add or modify the ones that you have. In this case let's go with UI write for instance and whenever you press write it will go to the next text or close. And last thing you can see this is the preview text. This is how you would write inside your dialogic text events and you can add whatever you like to this box and it will show up here. It's only for preview so you don't need to worry about this one too much. Next thing is that right now in a custom scene I created one here. You can add this dialog now. This node is located in your dialogic nodes and here you can just try and drop it. We already have one and you will have this timeline ID option. So you can get any timeline ID by going to your dialogic timelines and for instance this conversation I can right click, copy timeline ID and I can paste it here. I will improve this okay this is not the final version remember but since other people was asking me well that we're gonna have that so yeah here you have a very basic version of it. So I can save this and whenever I play this scene we will see this conversation happen. With the style that we already defined in the custom theme tab and pressing write goes to the next one and that's it. So right now the only event that is properly implemented is the text event. I will need to keep adding this again because the backend changed a little bit but I will continue updating you on Twitter if you are following me for more updates or if you follow their repository. Before they released 0.7 I used to work in a different branch so I will have all the changes going there and then release it whenever I had a video but right now I think it makes more sense to just keep pushing to master. So whenever I make any new updates you will see them here I will keep updating the changelog and you can get the latest version by downloading it from here download a zip or check in the releases. Remember the dialog is still not ready for production and everything is being worked on but I'm really happy how it's starting to shape up. If you have any questions leave them in the comments I would really like to thank my Patreons and if you want to chat with me I'm always available on Discord so feel free to come and say hi. Thanks and see you next time.


If you've ever played a Nintendo game, you'll likely have come across the work of the golden triangle. Nintendo's Secret Weapons, three developers have been with the company since the Famicom era, and have lent their talents to a vast array of titles across many different gaming genres. Shigeru Miyamoto, Toshihiko Nakago, and Takashi Tazuka have formed the foundation for many of your favourite Nintendo games, and their continued contributions have shaped the way the company functions in the modern era. There's is a story of friendship, teamwork, and occasional arguments of how three friends with very little experience ended up defining an entire emerging art form. This is the story of the Golden Triangle, the three people who built Nintendo. According to the late Satoru Uwata, Nintendo's early success came from a dream team of three talented developers. Nicknamed the Golden Triangle, these three creators were responsible for a lot of the big hits that defined Nintendo's 8-bit era, and they've continued to hold prominent roles in the company ever since. Shigeru Miyamoto is by far the most famous member of the Golden Triangle, and he often gets the credit for coming up with many of the big ideas for Nintendo's games. Shigeru initially joined Nintendo as the company's first artist, and worked with early programmers and developers to create Donkey Kong, among other arcade classics. But just as important are his two co-creators, Toshihiko Nakago and Takashi Tazuka. These two men work on the vast majority of Nintendo's early games, including, importantly, Super Mario Bros. Interestingly, neither of them started out as gaming enthusiasts. Toshihiko Nakago was originally hired by Nintendo to work on programming for the Famicom Games Console, known as the Nintendo Entertainment System in the West. Toshihiko was a programmer at heart, and had experience working with a key computer chip that was central to the working of the Famicom. As such, he was hired more for his technical expertise than for any insight into making games. As one of the only people at the company at the time who actually understood how the Famicom's computer chip worked, Toshihiko was set to work porting arcade games onto the console. He built the NES version of titles like Donkey Kong and Balloon Fight. This was a very difficult process. Toshihiko had to bend a game that had been designed for a state-of-the-art arcade hardware and condensed it so that it could fit onto a far less advanced home console. Some things, such as character movement, had to be entirely reworked in order to make things fit together. Just as all this port work was wrapping up, someone tapped Toshihiko on the shoulder and introduced himself, announcing that the pair would be working on a new game, Excitebike, together. Toshihiko didn't have a clue who this person was, but he later learned that this was none other than Shigeru himself, the creator of many of the games that Toshihiko had been porting onto the Famicom. Takashi Tazuka was not exactly a video gaming expert when he first applied to work at Nintendo. He and a friend were looking for jobs at the same time, and they applied to the fledgling game studio in the hopes of getting work together. This wasn't meant to be. Takashi's friends sadly didn't make the cut, but having earned a place at Nintendo, Takashi had a lot of homework to do. He immediately rushed out to buy a Famicom, as he figured he probably needed one to understand what his job was about. Takashi was surprised to discover that this was a games console. He thought it was some sort of home computer. Takashi joined with the already established Shigeru Miyamoto, working on a game called Devil World. While Takashi had never even heard of Pac-Man before joining Nintendo, he now found himself making a game that borrowed heavily from this famous title. Then, once Devil World was completed, the trio came together to work on Excitebike, their first game together. Toshihiko describes their collaborative process thusly. Shigeru starts off by digging a hole. Takashi then finds some way to fill this hole. Then, right at the end, Toshihiko makes sure it's smooth and solid by pushing a roller over the soil. Shigeru was the Ideas Man. He'd come up with the broad strokes of what a game would be about, and he'd have a lot of ideas about how gameplay would work and what things should look like. Takashi was the designer who put this into practice. He figured out the layout of levels and the placement of elements within the game. Then, it was up to Toshihiko to program the game together. He and Shigeru would often argue over what elements should be included in a game, as while Shigeru would come up with plenty of engaging ideas, Toshihiko needed to worry about the limitations of the hardware and the amount of data that could be fitted into a cartridge. Luckily, Toshihiko had help from a very talented mentor. There was a fourth member of the Golden Triangle, albeit one who was only involved in an advisory capacity. While very few people at the company understood how the Famicom's internal chip worked, there was one person who could help. Satoru Iwata, then a programmer at another company, HAL Laboratory. When Satoru first visited Nintendo's office in Kyoto, he got the impression that he must have been the only person in the building who actually understood how the Famicom worked. Upon meeting Toshihiko, Satoru did his best to educate his colleague. HAL Laboratory worked on the port of Balloon Fight alongside Nintendo, and so Toshihiko and Satoru spent plenty of time together. During that time, Satoru taught Toshihiko everything he knew, trying to help him get to grips with his difficult job. At one point, after a long discussion with Satoru, Toshihiko returned to his desk to be berated by Shigeru. Why do you have to go to another company to find this stuff out on Shigeru with exasperation? In later years, Satoru would express disappointment that of all the Nintendo franchises, he never got the chance to work on a Mario game. When he said this, Toshihiko reminded him that the lessons Satoru had taught him during the development of Balloon Fight had directly helped Toshihiko to build Super Mario Bros. That made Satoru happy. Towards the end of work on Super Mario Bros., Satoru paid a visit to Nintendo's office, where he was presented with a pre-release copy of the game. He took it back to HAL Laboratory, where nobody at the company got any work done for two weeks as they were all busy playing the game. Immediately following the completion of Super Mario Bros., the golden triangle were needed on other projects. Most pressingly, another Famicom game, The Legend of Zelda, needed to be wrapped up. And so, as the team was thrilled by the conclusion of Super Mario Bros., Shigeru Miyamoto said, Celebrate by all means, but only for about three hours. In spite of this heavy workload, the three developers were eager to continue working together. They felt less like professional game designers, and more like a kind of hobby group that got together and shared their enthusiasm for games development. Over the next few decades of work, the trio would find themselves taking on increasingly senior roles within the company. Sometimes they'd work together, and sometimes they'd tackle separate projects, but all the while they'd be communicating and sharing ideas. Even to this day, whenever possible, the trio sit together at lunch, sharing stories about what they've been doing on weekends, and laughing and joking. Satoru once described the golden triangle as a kind of like a comedy trio. Wherever they go, things get a lot more interesting, and a lot funnier. And so, when Nintendo started making brand new 2D Mario platformers for the new Super Mario Bros. series, the old guard couldn't help but get sucked into development. Each would offer help in their own way. Takashi would stick his head around the door in meetings and pipe up with suggestions. Toshihiko would offer guidance to developers who needed extra help. Meanwhile, Shigeru stood behind developers, watching gameplay footage, and ordering them to make big and small changes to reflect his personal preference. Nobody asked him to do this, and he wasn't part of the main development team. He simply loves getting involved in game design wherever possible. The moral of this story is that good friends help you to be better. Surround yourself with people who help you to improve, people that make you happy, and who encourage you in working to meet your goals. Having friends to rely on can make the process of growing and learning a lot easier. You'll find it less stressful to bear through challenging times, and their insight can help you to develop solutions to difficult problems. But, aside from anything else, they help you to enjoy life, and that's what matters most. But the story of the Golden Triangle doesn't end here. One day, Nintendo ran into a problem. The company wanted to develop two separate 2D Mario platformers at the same time. But while the company had grown, and there were a lot of very talented developers that were available to work on the projects, they didn't have any experience making these kind of games. And so, two members of the Golden Triangle reunited. Their mission? To train younger Nintendo staff in the art of making a Super Mario Bros. game. Next week, we'll tell the story of the Mario Cram School, and how Takashi Tezuka and Toshihiko Nagako taught a new generation all their gaming design secrets. To be continued...


Welcome and thank you for being here with us today for another episode of the nonprofit show. We have Justine Townsend with us. Justine is a CPA with your part-time controller. Also one of our presenting sponsors and we are so grateful to have Justine with us for this episode to talk to us about tips to getting that working budget that I know we all need. So before we dive into the conversation, we of course want to say thank you to our presenting sponsors. And thank you to Julia Patrick who is here, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. So thankful that you had this wonderful idea almost two years ago now to say let's go on for two weeks and now of course you know well beyond two weeks. And I get to serve alongside you Julia as your co-host. I'm Jarrett Ransom, Julia's nonprofit nerd, but also your nonprofit nerd. There's enough to go around CEO of the Raven Group. And during this week of gratitude, we of course have so much appreciation for our presenting sponsors continue to have these conversations. Thanks to their investment, not only here in these episodes and the nonprofit show but truly the sector at large. I really like to remind everyone that these companies exist for you. They are on your team on your roster. Please do lean into them as they lean into you and your communities to help you serve your community in a greater, bigger, bolder way. So thank you again to our sponsors. And thanks to Justine who has joined us today to talk about budgeting and bravery. Welcome Justine. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. You know, I think you have to be very brave to be a numbers person. Oh, I don't know. I think some of us just think that way. And it's hard to not be a numbers person. You know, I feel like it's the budget process and the people in accounting that know the truth and how we articulate that to clients in our nonprofits and our donors and our philanthropic investors. It's a heavy lift. And those who do it well, really come ahead. And those that don't, I think really suffer and if that's anything anything I've learned over the years, and in the nonprofit sector. That's one of the kind of I would say almost true isms it's fascinating and so you're going to be talking to us about part of this, and that's the budgeting process. Let's get into it because we only have you for 30 minutes, but I think we need you for like 30 days. So how critical is it to have a budget in place for the new year. And I want to ask you this question with the lens of COVID because there's still a lot of uncertainty. Or should there, or should that matter. Well, whether or not you have insert uncertainties, you need to have a detailed budget right because our budget is the plan for how we're going to achieve our mission for the next year or three years or five years depending on how long of a budget you're creating. But I think for this topic we'll stick with, we're just talking about next year's budget right just one year. And that is how are you going to fulfill your mission. How are you going to distribute those resources that we all know every nonprofit struggles with limited resources right and you know we all have like bigger eyes than we have money to achieve all of the things that we want to do in our community right it's like, especially during Thanksgiving week we think about having our eyes are too big for our food. It's a bigger plate than we should I think nonprofits we do this a lot with our mission right we try to take on more than we can. And the budget is a bit of a reality check for that right when we go through that budgeting process we say, how much can we reasonably move in this next year and how are we going to do that, and we make that plan, and having that plan ensures our success and ensures that we can pivot. If we need to it makes us a lot more nimble you wouldn't think that but having a detailed budget actually makes you more nimble. Okay, that Jared you take it away because I have to think about that. I think I think automatically my brain goes to the opposite that it that it hog ties me down. Yeah, and I like what you just said justine because it really does give us those parameters of way, you know, have we allocated these resources and how can we intend to use them over the course of this period of time. And one of the things that I know I have heard and learned throughout these last two years is really you know, we should put x% in professional development x% and cybersecurity x% and this, and that for me already gives us a guideline for this forecasted budget. And so I think that really sets the tone for the parameters, but then also as it comes to allocating those resources, I think that you know that's really where we have to focus our time. And so having this critical need for that detailed budget, as you said earlier you know if we are not, if we don't have a plan, then we're planning to fail. We need this detailed plan. Exactly. And you know, one of the ways that we become more nimble and that we can pivot with that detailed plan is by documenting the details right so it all rolls up as board members, or even as management of a nonprofit. And sometimes all we see is the big number right this is how much we're spending on salaries the big number this is how much we're spending on security this is how much we're spending on this professional services, but what is included in that. We're putting in there to build up that total number. And how has that changed from prior year and how are those changes going to help us achieve that goal, and really thinking through our numbers in that way. So I think that we're justifying our expenditures to ourselves as we're building that budget we're making our justifications because eventually we're going to take this to a board right and say, please approve this. Yeah, right. I think you're right and I love that you're you talk about exploring that. Now I want to ask you with that concept in mind. I can't imagine that there were too many, you know, brain surgeons across our, our sector that had figured out we were going to have a pandemic and that they needed to be flexible so I'm asking you. How do we consider this incredibly change changing time and that we are as accurate as we can, without being punitively damaged, because we couldn't tell that this was going to be fall us. That's a hard question. No, no, it's a great question and when we have those details documented how did we get to those numbers with the pandemic. I was there was actually a lot of budget cuts that you could make pretty quickly because you weren't going to have electricity, you weren't going to have, you could shut down kind of the office and not be paying all of those utilities for a while right. And then there were some kind of automatic increases on expenses we were going to have. I mean I know for us it was technology right that's I'm sure for most organizations we made investments in technology.  I can now add this in and still feel pretty safe that I'm going to hit my end goal of whatever my surplus my budgeted surplus was and we always budget surpluses. We never want to budget a loss right, we always want to budget surpluses because that's more that you can do next year, right that just helps your mission more next year. We're going to reinvest that. And then we also want to build in contingencies right so when we know we're heading into a year of, you know, perhaps we could have a third big increase of this virus and have to shut down again, or couldn't you take it again right. Or who knows what could happen right we want to build in some contingencies and document what. What are maybe our lowest hanging fruit to cut should this year turn negative should we not achieve this revenue goal. And this is a lesson we can use every year not just in a post pandemic or a pandemic year. Every year we can build in a little bit of a contingencies if we want to put in a stretch goal for our revenue to incentivize our development team to push themselves. Well then we want to make sure that we have also documented what the contingency is if we don't hit that stretch goal that we built into our budget. What are we going to cut. Right. And so having that documented in a very detailed way gives us that flexibility to cut when we need to. I've never seen that Jared have you seen that. Absolutely you know most of the organizations I work with they have a plan a budget and then they have a plan B and their plan B. You know they always say like it's in the desk drawer. I know exactly where it is and it typically justine is the cut in personnel right it's that. And so I think that those are the you know individuals and or departments that might need to you know be reduced if we need to go into our contingency plan and how will that impact our community and services. I have seen it it's scary and it's scary to know that it exists but I also think again it's that reality you know and it's it's having that detailed budget for the what ifs. And so they're walking into you know the the dark alley without knowing what's what's around the corner. Absolutely well and it gives you an opportunity to kind of and I you know you want to identify the sine qua non what your mission cannot survive without right and so when we go through the budgeting process. What can we not live without and then that tells us should we have a bad year should we not hit our goals. These are the things we will never touch. And these are the things that are a little bit easier for us to play with right and so it's it's not necessarily having a plan B but at least documenting what are the things that hurts your mission the least to cut. Right and sometimes that is personnel and fortunately a lot of times it's it can be admin personnel. But I would say look at that though are those admin actually making it possible for you to achieve your mission is it maybe something else you could cut somewhere else. So this takes us really in dovetails into you know is it okay to revise this budget and I do recall over the last couple of years. Really hearing from a lot of leaders saying, you know what we will forecast our budget and we will visit it quarterly if not monthly. I would love to learn from you justine what you and you know really everyone at your part time controller is sharing by way of revisions and how we should, you know, incorporate this best practice. So what we like to say is your budget once it's approved by the board that's your budget right and unless everything changes which certainly in the first year the pandemic that happened, everything changed and so you might want to go back and do a little bit and have the board approve that, but truly from there will forecast. So we'll take that original budget document, leave it where it is leave that is our, because that's a benchmark that's a point in time that we still want to measure ourselves right because we had a plan that budget was a plan that we express numerically, and so we still want to benchmark against where are we on that plan. But then we'll have forecasts and we might have a first quarter forecast and a second quarter forecast and a third quarter forecast, where we're updating that budget, but we're not calling it the budget, we're calling it a forecast. We give ourselves that wiggle room, but are still always benchmarking ourselves against that original plan. So we're always reminding the board and ourselves, what we gave up, what we're not getting done, so that we don't forget to circle back and get it next year, when we can right when we're planning for next year we want to pick those things back up, especially if it was mission critical right. So, leaving that budget intact that original budget intact gives us that opportunity to make sure that we're constantly going back to what did we plan to do that we didn't do. And where we go from here that's a forecast right and sometimes we need a board approval for those and sometimes we don't. It just depends on the board, but that's one of the things that makes us more nimble with the forecast is a lot of times it doesn't have a board approval and as much of that budget making process. Right. You know, I think one thing that I've loved that I picked up from what you said, and it's a point of bravery because that kind of fits the theme of today's episode is you're using the word plan. I feel like when you use that word with budget, it doesn't just mean oh yeah that's what the bean counters came up with in those cubicles in the dark side of the building. It kind of makes everybody more accountable, more integrated into what the process is and I think overall, it helps you tell the story of where you are I really appreciate how you've reframed this. Absolutely. I mean it is very important to me and to everyone at YPTC. When we come on and we start working with an organization to prepare a budget. We're going to pull folks in. Right. We, we're outsiders. You know what you want and what you should see happen. And how does this work and what are you willing to put into it. And so pulling more folks into the budget creates more ownership of that plan. So you see people following through and caring about it and being proactive, right, saying like it doesn't look like we're going to hit this revenue goal, or I didn't get this grant so how are we going to feed all of these people at the end of this year that we said we were going to feed gives you more time to say, you know, it's kind of like the Titanic right, you can see the iceberg coming so you have plenty of time to turn that giant ship away. But if you don't see it coming you don't know. Right. You're reminding me a lot and I wish I knew the author of this quote so hopefully one of our listeners or viewers will will get on the Google but people support that in which they help create and so just really have the buy in and the leadership and the, you know, the conversation in this very authentic transparent manner. As you were stating, people want to be a part of this and so you know really going back to having the buy in and the support of the team is really I think, advantageous, you know, as, as we all move forward. And I'm curious in that I know we didn't touch on this really earlier but, you know, when it comes to strategies for measuring budgets and tracking. Love for you to talk about that and then also how do we take this from the numeric numbers into a narrative context. Absolutely. So, I'll start with that how do we take it into a narrative context I'll start there and then we'll get into measuring it and tracking it right and saying how are we doing, are we on plan or are we off plan right. But what I love and what we always do is when you're presenting a budget to the board you want to present the narrative that goes with it. This is what's different than last year. This is what's the same as last year. And these are the things that are reaches. So if we don't get this then we're not going to do this, putting in there and making it very clear what your contingencies are, and what those assumptions are so that the board is asking. We didn't hit this revenue goal. So we're cutting this right this isn't happening so the board can hold you accountable and say, we shouldn't be spending that money, because we didn't hit this revenue goal. So why are you telling me that that money is being spent. Where is this new revenue going to come from, giving the board those words will help them hold that story of the budget in their head. This is our original budget, maybe here's our forecast from first quarter and our forecast from second quarter, and here's our actual first and second quarter results. And let's compare them, but we're going to do that not just quarterly but monthly. Monthly we're going to look at that budget so we don't want a budget that is annualized we need a budget that's broken down by month that takes into account seasonality of your business right because nonprofits were all businesses. And some of them are more seasonal than others right and so so you really have meaningful results to track against you want a budget, according to your seasonality as well. Then it makes more sense right and you have something you can really track. And one of the things that I always point out to board members is whether or not it's a timing difference with the budget. We're going to get it later or we're going to spend it later, or if it's a permanent difference. We did not get this grant that we were planning to get or we're not going on this trip that we were planning to go on because travel measures have changed and so now we're not traveling. So there's some savings and here's where it's going, but keeping them up to date on that will help so much when you need to pivot and make an emergency decision. If you're holding in your head what is the story and where are we in that plan and where are we on this tracking, according to this budget forecast sorry go ahead Jared. No, and I think we all know that there's been a lot of we're going to move you know these dollars into this section now. And I think off the top of my head justine you know that really came into play when it fundraising events right like actual fundraising events and I know that many organizations went to the digital space to still, you know, solicit their constituency base but there have been some organizations that are up on their second year of not having or holding or hosting their big fundraising event and that is a huge revision and a really big need for that narrative conversation and I'm thinking not just with the board, but the leadership and and all individuals within the organization. Absolutely well and going to the program people saying we're not having this gala so we're going to have to do less. Where can we make cuts, or are there ideas you have maybe of what we can put online to connect donors to our mission more, you know we we can't throw them a party. So maybe we can get a more in touch with our mission right so maybe we make the connection there instead of making the connection and that touch point a party point, but instead a mission touch point, and we go to our friends and programming to help us make that connection right. And we've seen that Julia it makes me think of the organization animal shelter of course that they were not you know able to bring in volunteers. So they literally turned on like FaceTime or you know streaming and just walked the halls if you will of the kennel. And that was a huge pivot that really you know reap some rewards in a lot of ways, but mainly financially, as well as increase of adoption. Well, and it keeps that touch point going so one of the things that I have noticed and am advising as we're budgeting for next year. Don't budget based on the gala you had in 2018. Right, because not everybody's coming back. Great point.  So, you might want to look at where has your donor engagement declined and how much and if you can kind of estimate a percentage of your donor engagement decline, then you can estimate a percentage of your gala revenue decline. So you should have expenses that are reduced that offset that because you're not feeding as many people right. So, they're really taking a look at that and thinking very carefully as you're planning about how all of this is going to impact your next year. I mean you're guessing but taking note of those guesses really helps. Well, they. All organizations have seen a decrease. In fact, some organizations have a significant increase in financial support. My question and I'd love to know from you and yptc. What are your best practice when it comes to forecasting that sustainability. What is we look at where is that coming from right where, what is the source of that increase is it from all of this kind of additional government funding we've been able to get. And then are you going to be able to replace that with the ARPA funds right so we have the American recovery plan, we have the infrastructure bill that just came out. And all of these new kind of revenue sources that are going to come down. Like I know in Texas, we just got $10 billion in ARPA funds that is going to trickle down to a lot of our clients, and a lot of our clients are gearing up to spend a lot more money in 2022 than they did in 2021, because of those ARPA funds. So, are there replacements on deck for you and if not, if you're going to see a constriction of revenue, what is that going to look like where is that going to come from what signs are you seeing how have you evaluated the sustainability of your funding. And if you're losing funding when are you replacing it right. And to me when I hear you say that I go back to the very first weeks of the nonprofit show and we had your managing director on Jennifer Oliver and literally had her phone coming she was coming out of the east with your main office. She literally had her phone on during the show, when there were votes going on and say okay okay well you know and I mean it was like literally a day to day thing, and how it changed what I hear you saying she said at the time, the narrative. I'm asking your board who's doing a lot of other things to come in and grasp a major concept and so to your point. I love just seeing the concept of that narrative so that you can be brave you can tell that story. You're supposed to just getting bamboozled by a series of numbers and lines that don't necessarily help you make a decision during that meeting. Absolutely. And having that plan and being able to hold that narrative in your head, really helps board members make those decisions and feel comfortable, both feeling both feeling their fiduciary responsibility to be able to make those decisions responsibly and to ensure the sustainability of the organization from the mission. Well, this has been great and I think that you have helped me to realize that we can be brave and maybe more intelligent. It's not just an emotional okay I'm going to be brave and bite the bullet but that it is. It's an intelligent process because I think and Jared, I'm sure you would agree. Anything that we know is a change is still here and still coming. You know we are not through, you know, all clear I mean there's still so many things that are up in the air and so this is the time for our nonprofits to really be even more strategic. Jared, I mean what do you what do you see one of my biggest takeaways that I hope that I hear around more board tables is what is our contingency plan. I would like to really know, okay, yes this is where we are this is what we're currently working with and we can forecast, you know, and be as detailed as we want. And we need to also consider our contingency plan and as you said justine these very clear benchmarks of, you know, if this than that, and having that outlined so clearly is what probably one of my biggest takeaways from today and I'm just so you know we started by saying you know it's brave to be a numbers person and justine I'm so grateful that you are. And to know that you are here in our corner and in our sector for all of those watching today and our 1.8 million nonprofits that are registered throughout the US we are so very grateful to have your intelligence in this as well as your partners throughout your part time as well as your partners. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm so grateful to have had this opportunity to chat with you and hopefully give some folks the opportunity to improve their budget process, all braver to go into it. I'm I'm like a lot more empowered, and I also think that you kind of spoke to a lot of things that I've been recognizing but maybe couldn't articulate and I and I love the way you pulled some things together. Again to remind everyone if we haven't met I'm Julia Patrick CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. I've been joined by my nonprofit nerd your nonprofit nerd, the nonprofit nerd Jared ransom. Jared, I love how you said this this morning, the week of gratitude we have a lot of gratitude for our sponsors every day but I think you're right, I mean this is a week of gratitude and certainly are presenting sponsors allow us to be here and have these amazing conversations like we've had today with Justine so please make sure that you reach out to them and let them know that you are as appreciative as well. Wow. Okay, I have a board coaching session in a little bit. I think I'm going to repeat a lot of what you said today. I love when we can use it right away. Yeah, I mean like we're talking 30 minutes so you're going forward with this sister. Hey everybody is we like to end every episode we want to remind you to stay well, so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow.


that he's loud. I'm not used to talking on a microphone, so this is gonna be interesting. Okay, so I am Sharon, and I'm gonna be presenting this workshop today, and I'm just gonna go ahead and get started. So a great thing about the tech industry is that there is a ton of disruption and innovation. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of that happening on the communications end, and I am, press is guilty as the next m-m-m-m-marketer and communicator of falling into the pride and true the methods to hit my point across. As you can tell, I have a speech impediment. I stutter. And it has made a lot of choices for me in my own life. I chose to be a writer because I was a lot more comfortable with the written word, as opposed to obviously talking to people. I chose to be a freelancer because any time I would go to a job interview, I would become just engulfed with so much anxiety that I would go to a job interview. I wouldn't be able to hit a word out, even my name, as you guys could tell a couple of seconds ago. And I chose a lot of times to be s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s silent, even though I knew I could add value to the conversation. And value is a word that I'm going to be talking about a lot today, and I'm also going to be talking about m-m-m-m-m-m-marketing as well. These are key points, and they are going to make a lot more s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-sance as Time progresses. So, after ten years as a writer, with about eight of them in the s-m-m-m-m-m-m-marketing capacity, capacity, I have learned a couple of things about what companies think they need to do to get their eyes on their brand. They talk a lot about mobile strategy and SEO, hashtags and social impact and of course Facebook and Twitter and also branding. The problem with that word is that a lot of companies have trouble seeing themselves and exposing their flaws as I am doing right now. Think about it. When was the last time when you had an idea for a marketing plan and you scratched it off the list because it exposed a weakness. It probably happens a lot more often than you think especially when you are in an early stage company and you are working with limited means. You stick with what you know. Today I want to challenge you to abandon your strengths and explore the things that you consider to be a weakness. So often we consider weakness and out as the negatives. They walk hand in hand that those feelings aren't necessarily a bad thing. The Italian intellectual and I am probably going to butcher his name. You set that out is creative because it allows for alternative ways to see the world. What if you applied that to your company's brand or even your personal brand? I love to read and one of my favorite authors is Haruki Murakami. He actually uses a form of weakness in his writing. The Atlantic actually wrote about him and talked about how no other writer writes as many bad sentences as he does. If you have read any of his books you will understand that. His writing is compelling because of the storytelling. That is another concept that will be talking a lot more about. The plots take you from supernatural to reality almost in the same paragraph. It is bizarre. It is often written properly or long-winded. But it works. He is marketed himself by using poor sentences to his advantages. Now he is one of the great writers of our time. That is another tip. You can stand out by being unequivocally and imperfectly who you are. Always remember that sometimes your greatest vulnerability can be your most valued asset. Kevin Plank who is the founder of Under Armour, he understands this incredibly well. The first rule of his formula for innovation design is to do one thing really well. That is what he did. For the first five years of Under Armour they only had one product. It was their compression t-shirt. For me in my his-ness it was writing in all forms. I covered editorial and went over to his-ness and then I eventually landed in marketing. That builds credibility. Once you have that under your belt, you can begin to grow from there. For you it could be a voting time to a couple of platforms that you know will work and then disrupting and innovating from there. My personal disruption was doing this. It was speaking. I began speaking about a year ago as a way to break out of my shish-sh-sh-shell. I was terrified to talk to people one on one. I was even more terrified to do anything that compared to what I'm doing now. Once I put myself out there, my biggest fear, my strongest vulnerability and my greatest out, I realized that I was connecting with people in a real way. It's a lot easier to connect with your audience whether it be a larger group like this one or in a one-on-one conversation. If they know that you are a Peleod as well. So the question that I'm going to pose to you today is what's your disruption.  What challenges you to the point of being afraid? That's where your sweet spot is. That is what is going to capture your target audience and then make you stand out. People are probably going to tell you that you need to be the strongest communicator to succeed. But sometimes the truth is that you have to be the most transparent one. All right, so now we're going to get into our first exercise. And I want you guys to pair up. I think there's probably enough people to do this in pairs. And I want you to talk about an area in your professional life that you consider a weakness. And to give you some examples of that, it could be like talking to a toss about something. It could be trying to connect with a co-worker or it could be trying to explain a technical concept to a non-technical person. And then after you've talked about that, also talk about a time when that weakness kind of overcame you and caught the test of you. So you're going to do this in pairs. Preferably with a person that you don't already know. So you may have to travel around the room a little bit in order to make this work. So I'll give you guys like 10 minutes. All right, so we're going to wrap this up. Just this exercise. Okay, so how did it go? Talking about a thing that you don't consider to be positive. How did it feel? Go ahead. You know, I found that conversation to be a lot less shallow than most of my conversations. Really? A little more deep because like you said, it kind of helps you open up a little bit. But I'm sure it helps you relate to someone else who is also weak in areas. And Matt here pointed out, you know, in the tech industry, we all tend to feel somewhat inadequate in some and not many areas. So I thought that was great. Who needs church? Anyone else? Yeah, we're kind of joking. It's like, oh, that's quite nice, right. It's like, you know, if I got something that's just terrible, right, you know, it's not like, oh, very wrong or whatever. But it definitely was like, oh, it's actually not real. Yeah, they're real. Like, have a real conversation with someone. Yeah, it's crazy. Well, that's awesome. I mean, that's a really good job. I mean, I don't know if I would be able to do this exercise after being in a workshop for 10 minutes, and I'm presenting the workshop. So lucky me.  Yeah, well, that's actually a good segue into the next part. And hopefully you'll be able to talk to your team easier about anything after this. That's the goal, how to talk to humans. So, yeah. Before I go on, does anybody else have anything that they wanted to add? We're all friends here now. So good, good. Okay.  Like everybody wants to be liked. Even right now, I, like, I want you guys to think I am awesome, that I'm interesting, and that I'm funny, and that I'm the coolest person here. Like, yeah, like that's just who we are as people. Our brains are wired to connect. We, it's how we've gotten this far in, in evolution is the through group, egg, so if you go back to the exercise, as you were talking about the thing that made you vulnerable, you, even at that moment, probably attempted to present it in a way that still kind of puts you in a positive light. What you're forgetting in your own insecurity is that the other person has the exact same need as you. As you were opening yourself up to them, they too, needed you to like them as well. And I understand this very well because of stuttering. As I'm struggling to get words out, even right now, I tend to feel like I am in a position of weakness here. All of you guys actually hold all of the power, you know? Like, all of you guys could just decide, like, okay, I'm over this, and all of you guys are just going to walk out and leave, and I feel like, okay, well, I'm up here, and you guys can choose, like, by Sharon, and that would be kind of the end of that. And in situations like this one, where there is a communications power and talents, our insecurities about how we communicate with each other always kind of come to the surface. An example of this would be when you are talking to an angry investor. They have given you hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you're lucky, they've given you millions of dollars, and they have to have these answers immediately about how you are spending their money. So what types of physical reactions do we have anytime we feel like we are in a situation like that? I can give you an example. I was running late this morning, and I immediately started us, swearing, which I know is a very attractive thing to think about right now, but yeah, like, we get hot, and a lot of us tend to speed up our speech, or we have problems articulating ourselves. We have these reactions because we perceive the other person as holding all of the power. But again, you have to always come back to the fact that the other person, and it doesn't matter the role that they play, they still have that basic need for you to like them, because that's who we are at our roots. We are people who have to be accepted by everyone else. So when you do have moments like that, just remember that everyone in every social situation is a little bit vulnerable because our basic human instinct is always going to kick in. Okay, so now that we know that the other person is exactly like us, we need to know how to use this to our advantage. So there are two types of communicators. There are the intelligent and formers, and the social relators. Again, they both want the same thing, but how they go about it is completely different, and one of the ways is always going to trump the other way. All right, so I'm going to begin with the intelligent and former. This is a person who is going to try to show you how awesome they are trying to impress you. An example of this, and I don't want to offend anyone. I have done it before, and it's awesome, and it's great, are the people who do crossfit and who absolutely love it. They talk about it incessantly. I have abs. I can run a mile in two minutes. I can live blah, blah, blah, and it's like, that's really great that it's helping you. However, how is this going to help me? How is this going to add any value to my life? How is your love of this one thing going to help me? It's not, right? Right? And that's the problem with this approach. It's a very focused approach to it, and it can hack fire for obvious reasons, but mainly because you aren't valuing the person who is on the receiving end, and that brings us to the social relator, and their goal is to make the other person feel valued, right? They try to learn about other people. They try to support other people, and the bottom line is they listen. I actually read a really great quote about Richard Branson. It was by a person who has spent a lot of time around him, and he says that he always listens a lot more than he talks. When you think about a person who a lot of people consider to be charming and charismatic, I'm sure that the first thing that comes to everyone's mind is how they talk to people, but that's actually not how they're presenting themselves. They actually sell at valuing the listener. They look into your eyes when you speak. They respond to the silent cues that you give them, and they hear what you have to say, and they only interject when they know that they can add value, and we call this empathy. If you want to know the basis of how to talk to another person, empathy is it? I mean, all of you guys have a lot of empathy right now because you are here hearing everything that I have to say, even though I am at times having a really difficult time actually saying it. Now we're going to get into the next exercise. I want you to find another person in the room who you haven't talked to yet, and then I just want you to ask them a couple of questions. It can be about anything. If you want to make it like his-ness-like, then you could ask them about their job or their company. You could also ask them about their favorite part of their job. The goal here is truly to just talk to a new person and keep in mind how you are talking to them and listening to them. I'll give you another eight to 10 minutes, and then we'll come back and we'll talk about it. How did it go? Did you enjoy this? Was this weird? Did anybody have any comments about what they- go ahead. Yeah, well, it's a lot easier when you- we're always telling people about ourselves and we're always giving other people clues about us. If you just kind of take the information that he gives you, and then you can turn that into questions, there's always more things to ask. Yeah, but while I'm digesting the information, I'm not listening to his next thing, and then I'm like, oh, what? Oh, wow. It takes practice. Lots of practice, but I'm sure that you'll get it. That happens to me a lot too, but especially when someone's talking to you, the pressure's on. At least in my mind, it feels like the pressure's on. It's like, what am I going to say? And then you forget what the conversation is, and then the pressure is actually on you to me, and you lost your spot, and then your fear has come into actuality. It's just like, okay. I'm telling you, I'm trying to- for me, it's easy talking about technology or something, because I always have something to add to continue, but it's not though. It's very difficult for me to- Someone talks the worst. Serious. Yeah, well, a thing that I like to do is, I just like to keep asking people questions until I hit on a thing that they are in love with, and then it's a lot easier to have a conversation when the other person feels like 100% comfortable. Therefore, you feel the same way.  Active listening is harder than talking, but you can do it, I promise. Go ahead. I have a slightly dissenting opinion on this whole thing. Okay. I am not from here, so I'm not a native. I'm not a native English speaker. And when I came here to live with a student five or six years ago, I was much more shy of my native language than I could have. And actually, if I go back to France, I'm not nearly as outspoken in French as I am in English, because of small talk. These French people don't like small talk that much. It's like, I don't know what you're talking about. And to me, the small talk was in supermarkets, in Florida, where I was just like, I have conversations with random people with so many varied backgrounds, and then I'm practicing listening, because I didn't really care about what I was about to say, because I don't know, I had a agenda. So I said that I was waiting, and I said I was kind of freeing to just be like, and or to make them repeat something when I was in school.  You have single-handedly changed my opinion on small talk. But yeah, but that's awesome. And again, it takes a lot of practice to be able to do this on the go, but you guys are all very, very intelligent. So I know you can make this work. Go ahead. Yeah. Well, in the beginning, it is going to be uncomfortable because every conversation kind of has its own wavelength. And so in the beginning, it's going to be weird because you haven't figured out how the talents is going to be and how the flow of the conversation is. And so it is going to be awkward, but the goal is to have the other person feel valued and as long as that happens, then everything is okay. And we're going to talk a little bit more about getting your point across in a couple of minutes. If we have time, then we do. So yeah, go ahead. All right, it's just going to comment. It doesn't always have to be equal. Some people like to talk more and some people don't like to talk to myself. And so considering how much I'm talking up in this talk, you don't believe me, but in a conversation that's typically how it goes, and I like it when the other person carries more of a conversation. Yeah. So that can be okay. Yeah, again, you know, it's a really good point. Go ahead. And that happens. And in your personal life, okay, great. I never have to talk to this person again. Professionally, you have to make a way. So even if it's awkward and even if it's like, I really don't want to talk to this person, you have to even then even more value them because you need them in order to get things done. I was going to give you questions, but I'm like, no, it'll be way more fun for them to come up with their own because it'll be like a real life, you know, thing. So yeah, what kind of questions did you guys ask each other? If you don't mind saying that. What is your passion? Oh, wow. Just out the gate. What is your passion? Let's get real. Yeah, that's a great question. It is because it immediately like has the other person talking about a thing that they are just like, I can talk about this for hours and then they want to talk to you more and they think you're charming because you and that's exactly how you have to play it. You have to make it easy for the other person, especially in a professional way. Like you have to, you know, just make things easy. Anybody else want to share a question? Okay. Yeah, that's a good question. And that can turn into an open-ended one where you guys could talk about a lot of things as a result of that. So yeah, that's a good question too, especially at a place like this. Anyone else? Go ahead. Well, okay. Yeah, good. Another great question. I've actually never asked that question. I'm going to try that one next time. I'm at a networking event. Really? What did you do last night? Hey, there is nothing wrong with like eating Thai food and watching Netflix. That's what I did last night. Go ahead. That are not what? You sort of know who replies. Sorry, I'm so far away. You sort of know who replies? So I can't, I don't answer, ask a question that's just a, oh, yes. Yes, that's perfect. Yeah. Yeah, because those conversations can end really quickly. Are you having a good time? No. Okay. Bye. Like, that's it.  And I talked to my son a lot about what he does at school. So I said, hey, how was school today? Oh, school was good. What was good about it? You sound like my mom. No, but it works. But it works. That's another good one. Yeah. Always ask more questions. Anybody else? I asked what technique do you use to keep on, to keep learning, and to keep learning all different lengths and greatest things about rails and development? Good one. And I think she asked me, what do I like most about rails? Yeah, those sound like great questions. I don't know anything about development. So I'll take your word for it, but that leads to great places. All right. Well, again, like awesome questions. The whole goal, like overall goal is to just have it be a lot easier to build a a relationship very quickly. All right. And so if anybody else has anything to say, no one, cool. We're going to go into the last part, and this will be quick because we only have 20 minutes. So, yeah. Now I want to talk to you guys about just building a relationship and how to shape your own message. All right. So I know that I've talked about vulnerability and I've also talked a lot about marketing. And I know that you guys were probably thinking that this doesn't have anything to do with the workshop. And actually it does because marketing is talking to people. It's about connecting with your ideal audience and talking to them in a way that will compel them to take action. All right. So how do you compel a person to take action? Well, it's all about how you shape your message. All right. And a lot of the founders are pretty good at this on their own and they didn't even know it, right? Because if you talk to a person who has a startup and you ask them how it came to be, they always have a story to tell. It's not just, you know, I had an idea and so I decided to create Twitter. No. It's I was at my house and I had this problem and I was trying to find a solution and there wasn't a solution. And so I went and created it, right? And that way is compelling because it encourages whoever is listening to hang around and hear how the narrative ends, all right? And that's how I want you to view building a relationship. It isn't about trying to sell a person on yourself. But it's about presenting yourself in a compelling way so that people on the on the receiving end will hang around, right? It's about being harming. It's about asking questions. And then at the very end, it's about telling your compelling story. And it could be a lot like mine. That vulnerability has made me stand out for better or for worse. Or it could be that you have an idea that will change how other people do things, right? Just remember, it's all about how you present it to another person, all right? Okay, so we don't really have a whole lot of time left. So after this workshop, after this exercise, you guys can just head out. Or if you wanted to head out early, I understand because we only have about 10 minutes left. But the next thing that I want you to do, either today or tomorrow, is anytime you talk about your company or your hobby or your passion or anything else, I want you to consider how you are for framing it, right? So here's a hypothetical. You have a technical issue that you are trying to explain to a non-technical person. So a way that you could do that is to explain how that technical issue helped another person. And in turn, how helping them could help the person that you are talking to now. Does that make sense? I don't know if I explained that very well. Not really? Okay, so who can I use as an example? Who wants to come up here and explain to me what they do? Just a hobby. All right, come on. You've already been up here once. Lies. Okay, so we've already talked before and you're awesome. So thank you for coming up here. Okay, so what do you do for a living? Oh, and you get a microphone. I am a developer at onsite.com and we do online leasing for apartments. So apartment communities that want to screen their applicants and do background checks, you sign the leases, make everything electronic, get rid of all the paperwork. And I'm a developer there and help make things go. You help make things go. Okay, you have any hobbies that you like? Yes, I should have asked what hobbies do you like? Interesting, unique hobby. I guess nowadays, anyway, I play dance dance revolution a lot. How did you get started doing that? A long time ago, I had a friend who had it at his house and we played and we're terrible. And then one day I went to the arcade and saw how people really danced. And then I was able to copy that and get a little bit better. But then since then, I've been in competitions, one, some of them. But anyway, so I've got a dance arcade set up at my house now and that's my regular exercise. So that's fun. Okay, he's not a fair example for a lot of reasons. One, because he works for a company that is obviously very needed. But two, dance dance revolution, I'm never going to forget that. There's competitions, you guys. I did not know that. Not many anymore. Yeah, so if you were going to tell a person about dance dance revolution, how would you explain it to them? Well, okay. So yeah, maybe everyone doesn't know that game. It's a video game with music and arrows coming up the screen that you're supposed to dance to the beat to on a panel on the floor. Four buttons up, down, left, and right, except I play with all eight two players. So it's more like this. Is that good? That was cute. Yeah. Well, so okay. So how you talked about it, like it was obviously something that you are extremely interested in and extremely involved in. And now as a result, like I didn't know anything about dance dance revolution. I had heard of it, but I didn't really care about it. But now I'm like, okay, this is interesting. And me being the type of person I am, I'm going to go online and find out about these competitions and see the winners. Are you on the internet? Like does your picture and stuff? Not for dance dance. I'm going to YouTube you. I'm nil bus online and I'll be us, but I was just going to say if you want to try dance dance, you might want to try it with I don't wait, what am I saying? I don't know. It might be slightly embarrassing the first time you try it because it's not easy, but it just have fun and don't be shy. They have them at some arcades still. That is very cool. So you actually did tell us a story about you. If you realize it, we talked about how you found it. We talked about how you were bad at it. We talked about how you became good and that you do competitions and that you do eight. Let's say eight or four, four players, eight players. Two players, eight buttons on the floor. Two players, eight buttons on the floor. Yes. And now you've also invited us to play. So this is actually a really good example. So you actually told us everything about this one part of your life in a compelling way. Does that make sense? I just realized you're right. This is being recorded and I am on YouTube. Oh, no. That's all right. That's okay. I'm on YouTube too. It's for a good reason, for a good cause. All in good fun. Yes. So is this a thing that you guys think that is doable sometime? I mean, even right now, if you want to try to do it now for something that you are really interested in and passionate about or just kind of the end of the conference, I want you to be able to just have an entire conversation and then also at the very end to what he just did, which was very brave. And thank you for coming up here. All right. So you can either hang out now and do the workshop. We don't have too much time left or you guys can go. And I just want to say that this was awesome. This was the only time I've ever done a workshop like this. So this was a very nerve-wracking experience. And you guys were really patient and awesome and empathetic. And I hope that you all learned something and that you feel a lot more confident and empowered to go up to a new person and know that you can build a relationship with them pretty quickly. So thank you.