Hi all. Welcome to this session on six underrated responsibilities of product managers. I'm Bhushan Mughal. I'm a product manager at Google. Let's get right into it. So a little bit about me. I started my career as a software engineer, switched to PM product management at a startup, and for the past almost about three years, I've been a PM at Google. My background for the most part is in the data and analytics domain. Specifically, cloud data analytics and a large portion of my experience has been in the P2B business. About my journey as a PM, it's been a fun ride, but it has come with a steep sort of ongoing learning curve. Mentors have helped me navigate this learning curve as well. And based on that experience, I am also passionate about helping other PMs and prospective PMs as well. And a fun fact about me is I love memes. Pictures work a thousand words. So you'll see some of that during this presentation as well. So about the session today, we'll run through a little bit about why product management sometimes seems like an enigma, often misunderstood as well. Then we'll jump straight into the main topic of today, which is the underrated responsibilities, or they could also be core competencies or skills that a great PM brings to the table. And then we'll get deep dive into each one of them and then a few links for a follow through. So product management, we all know that it's an extremely critical role in the industry today, especially in the tech industry. But it's also very often a misunderstood role. There is an overall sort of general understanding of what a PM brings to the table, what are their roles and responsibilities. But there is often a lack of clarity. There is a tendency to oversimplify. A PM defines what to build, when to build it, and that's what they do. There's a lot of misconceptions and myths about this as well. A whole lot of industry experts have written various articles on myths about product management and tried to debunk them and provide actual evidence as well. And then along with that, there is a topic of today as well, which is there's a lot of responsibilities or core competencies that a PM should have that are often very underrated. People don't talk about them as much. And that's the topic of today's discussion. So what are these core competencies or responsibilities that I'm talking about? Their nature is very subtle. They're hard to notice. You sometimes take them for granted. But a PM is actually putting in a lot of effort in order to do those parts of his job as well or their job as well. These responsibilities are also understated. Not a lot of people talk about them. They're also complicated. They involve making hard decisions. Think they may also come across as harsh. Very difficult to navigate as well. We'll talk about some of them as well. And then in general, there is a sense in the industry that a PM is a very glamorous role. But some of these responsibilities that we'll talk about today are also very non-shiny, very non-glamorous. And then because of all of this, it might seem a little bit daunting, but there are ways to navigate all of that as well. But having said all of this, these responsibilities are extremely critical and go a long way in making a great PM. The other thing that I'd like to talk about a little bit before we jump into the responsibilities is that these may vary. A PM is in general, problem management is in general a very fluid function. It can vary from industry to industry. It can also vary based on company size. It can vary based on the business that you are in, B2C, B2P, etc. So some of these responsibilities may appeal and be more important in one of those areas and not the other. So take them, not every role is the same. So let's jump into the first one. So there is this conception in the industry widely that a PM's job is to keep building new things, keep proposing new things, keep defining new things, figure out what to build next always and just steer the whole ship across functionality towards those goals. They are also expected to be very, very visionary. They're supposed to think about the future, where the industry is going, etc. But what was unnoticed is in between all of this, a PM is continually making incremental progress. There are certain laid out vision strategies, certain features that the team has embarked upon. And towards those things, an essential part of the PM's job is also to ensure that incremental progress is happening. That the needle for the user in those known scenarios is moving in the right direction. The user's life is, customer's life is improving in those existing features and capabilities that you've already defined it. Let's talk a little bit more about incremental progress. There is, like I mentioned in the beginning, there is a tendency in the industry to focus solely on the next big thing always. That's also how you would find back in the day, even PMs have judged their performance is just based on how many launches they make, what big splashes they make, etc. And as a result, there is a tendency amongst PMs to keep proposing new features and building new features. There's also a massive feature for more, as I talk about it, what if I don't build and what if my competitor builds this, right? I may lose out on a market segment and a portion, etc., right? But having said all of this, one thing is also true, which is customers and users expect some sort of consistency as well, right? Once you've given them a set of capabilities, they want to have an assurance that you're with them on that journey. When they use that capability that if they run into problems, that you will be there to support them as well as that specific capability that they are using keeps making progress over time as well. It cannot be stagnant. So what happens a bunch of times is also, there is this, what I like to call as throwing across the wall sort of mentality, which is I think as a team, as a product manager, even or as a company, you're building features and throwing them across the wall, the customer, right? Without, and then, immediately moving on to the next big feature, right? This can have, due to the reasons I've mentioned before, an adverse impact on customers, but more importantly, it can also impact your own product teams more, your own engineering teams more all as well, because they're constantly doing the switch between different features and capabilities without actually realizing how the work that they do makes a difference to the life of a customer, right? It also creates hodgepodge and Frankenstein type products where it just seems like a whole bunch of features have been thrown together without clarity on what the product needs to be. Triggers positioning problems can have a very negative impact, right? Instead of one of the characteristics of a PM is that they know that ticket items can come, you know, few and far in between, but in between those, they will iterate constantly on customer feedback, right? They make incremental progress. And then by doing so, they will ensure that the things that they propose and define and ultimately end up building create sustained value for users and not just, you know, in the immediate future, but over a sustained amount of time, right? So how do you go about doing this, right? We'll talk about this in some of the future slides as well, but the key job of a PM is to establish the rationale for every single feature. Product discovery, as they also spoke to speak about, is extremely key. And it doesn't have to always play a major role only when you're launching a net new product. It could happen for every feature as well. So before you embark on a feature, a PM must have sufficient clarity on why it is being built, what problem it is solving, why is it necessary to build it right now and why should we as a product team be building it and why not someone else, right? They should also be concerned about whether we as a team have the capability whether it is feasible for us to build it, whether we have the skills, whether it is in our product's vision to build it, right? And once that is established, whether we can put a stake in the ground and say that we will have a continued investment in this capability over a sustained period of time, right? So the reason why this is important is also it also enforces that frequent changes, if you continue to make these frequent changes, they can also indicate a lack of focus and direction and again have that adverse impact on both your customers and your productivity. And so it is a PM's job to keep not only customers but also their management team as well as the product team that they work on focused on a set of objectives for a sustained amount of time and keep plowing through iterating in that direction for a sustained amount of time, right? Cool. So let's move on to the next one, slightly related to the first one as well but a little bit more focus on that rationale, that justification, right? So there is a misconception also in the industry which is it is a PM who comes up with all the ideas, right? Which is couldn't be further from the truth, right? But what is definitely true is a PM does bring the rationale for every single idea that is their core competency that is what they bring to the table that is their foremost responsibility. They need to know why a particular thing on their roadmap why a desired outcome is important for the product to achieve, right? They may not be the source of all the ideas but they certainly are responsible for the rationale. So the way I look at it is there are three components to every feature capability product, right? Why we are doing it? What is it? Which is the solution itself? The why is the problem? The what is the solution? And how is essentially, you know, how you're going to solve that problem, right? The actual implementation. So while the ideas can come from customers, they could come from stakeholders, partner teams, product teams, et cetera. It is a responsibility of the PM as to no matter where the idea came from. They must establish why that idea is important. Why is it important at a particular point in time? And why is it important for this particular product to work, right? And it's not just about having this concrete picture in their minds. It's about also communicating that and having consensus, building consensus about it as a whole, right? Across this entire spectrum from customers to stakeholders to the product team and having them focused on this, you know, giving them the clarity that is needed for them to be focused on this detection. So the way that typically product managers do is actually this is have, you know, a great story about the rationale of every single functionality or capability. And then, you know, move on to sort of communicating that in using, you know, exemplary communication and negotiation skills to the product team, to all the stakeholders. And you do that based on, you know, the why that you've already established and the data to back that as well, right? And the idea is unless you have this, unless you have the why established, do not move on to the actual solution itself. Do not move on to how that comes after the why, right? So there's also a way to look at the rationale and the justification and the why as an essential part of what we call as the product discovery phase. And then it is absolutely paramount that the PM does a thorough job, leaves the team, you know, engineering can participate, UX can participate, documentation can participate. But as a team, you establish the product discovery process and only after you've made sufficient progress in that you have absolute guarantees that yes, this makes sense. That is when you move to designing the solution, right? There's a great book in fact on this by Simon Sinek called Start with Why. I highly, highly recommend that I have given to you. So the next underrated responsibility is there's this notion again that PMs decided what to build next always, that's their focus. But one thing that goes unnoticed is a PM needs to pay an equal, if not even greater attention to what exists in the product that maybe doesn't make sense today, right? And there's far reaching implications of that. There has been a radio focus on this off late at large companies because, you know, ultimately this is what drags entire teams down. So let's talk a little bit more about that. So we've all discussed before it. Customer needs and market conditions are very fluid, right? What is true today? The sense of the world as it stands today may not be true one year from now, two years from now, et cetera. So it is extremely important to have a tab on the capabilities in your product, who is using them, how much are they using them? Are they important even today? Because again, a lot of product management is about decision making, right? What do I build? How do I build it, right? And you make those decisions oftentimes based on point in time information. What do you know today? That point in time information may change in the future. So you need to be able to capture all of your decisions and then be able to go back, correct things as well, right? So like I said, things that provided value, substantial value today may not provide value a few years down the line, a few months down the line. And it is crucial for a PM to maintain a tab on that. There's also a very hard thing to do, right? It's a hard decision to make to stop a feature. Not only hard about how to communicate this to your team, but even harder about, hey, how do I go about figuring if your users are still using it, right? Even if a small number of users are using it, how do I focus on steering them away from this into something that is much better for them perhaps, right? So those conversations are very critical. This is why communication is such an important aspect of product management, right? And if you get this aspect of shedding dead weight, if you have a good tab on this, there are a lot of benefits and hopefully you will see that product managers really get a lot of recognition if they do a good job of this, right? Because at larger companies, for example, this has the benefit of consolidation. Sometimes when you decide that when there are a lot of parallel efforts, you sunset some efforts, let someone else take that, right? And in general, lead to consolidation, resources, et cetera. There's also an even bigger thing here, which is an even bigger benefit of this, which is you keep a tab on the tech and product tech in your product, right? And you'll get appreciation across the board from this, right? You will have that sense from the engineering team, especially, it's very important here, is where they will have a sense that you are a trusted partner. You think about their objectives as well, right? So that's why this is critical as well. And then in general, it keeps your product surface area under check, right? It ensures that you don't blow up into Frankenstein types of products where you would just throw in features together, right? And how do you go about doing this is there are essentially two things, right? One is you need to have sufficient metrics in order to understand the usage of your product and it has to be sort of as granular as humanly possible, right? Which is collect as much data and then spend a lot of time sort of reading through that data and gathering insights from it around the product usage, et cetera, right? And then once you establish that you need to think about certain features and discontinuing them, then you need an immense sense of empathy. You know, customers may have invested a lot of time in those features, even if it is important to a single user, a single customer, you need to tread that path very, very carefully, ensure that you have the best interests of the customer in mind before and you guide them through sort of a process by which they transition into, you know, something else, for example, right? So as long as you handle those two, I think this is something that that a PM can do a good job at. Let's talk about the next thing here, right? Which is, yes, a product manager represents the voice of the customer, but more importantly, you know, what great PMs do is they develop this relationship with their key customers where customers think of them as their trusted advisors. They rely upon your world, you know, they put great value to your world, your opinions, and this is done even at the highest levels at the customer itself, right? And this is very, very useful because this then, even when you have to sort of walk away from a certain requirement from a customer, for example, the customer has that confidence in you that you're actually doing the right thing and guiding them, right? So let's talk a little bit more about this. So one of the things that is essential for every PM to understand is that the success of their product, which is what every PM shoots for, right? That needs to be a byproduct of the success of the customer. It cannot be the other way around, right? When you have conversations with customers, those conversations have to be focused more about the customer and their problems than, you know, just about your product, right? You have to have that, and it is actually important for you not to just do this, but for the customer to know that this is your thinking as well, that you have a keen interest in solving their problems and not just in sort of selling a product to you, right? Or releasing a new feature to you, right? So how PMs usually do this is, you know, a lot of the conversations are focused on customers and their problems, right? In these, you know, sometimes this may be difficult, but some PMs also go to the extent of observing the customer, you know, go about their work, their date of life in their environment, right? This may not always be possible, like I said, but it's important to notice, you know, sort of empathize with the customer, understand where they're coming from before, you know, sort of only telling them about your product and your solutions, right? And then cherry picking those problems which make sense within the context of your product and translating them into, you know, solutions that make sense within that, within that product's context, right? It is very, very important here to not, again, a hidden aspect here is sometimes you will have conversations with customers about, you know, this is especially when customers have already been using your product for a while, right? That they'll say, hey, you know, what if you implement a particular feature exactly this way? They are actually proposing a solution, right? And a PM has to have the conviction in those kinds of scenarios where let's focus on your problem, right? I can come back to you later with, you know, a proposed solution and then we can discuss that, of course. But let's focus on the problem, let's get that out of the way first and then have a subsequent conversation about the solutions, right? And you may also end up in situations where you have to say no to a solution that is proposed by a customer because it may not make sense in the product context. But which is why it is very, very difficult essentially to have a keen handle on the problem first, right? And then as a result of all of this, if you show this empathy, one of the aims of this is that customers see you as a trusted partner, a voice of reason, put a lot of weight behind your thoughts, etc. And then there are a lot of benefits that product managers can derive out of such mutually beneficial relationships, right? Especially in the B2B world, for example, you can get reference customers who can be your voice in the field looked at by two other customers, right? They can, you know, do the evangelism of your product for you. You can also trust customers for early feedback if you're looking for feedback on a new feature that you're trying out. Poor man's A-B testing, for example, but with real users, right? Perhaps even more important. And then you can also withstand headwinds where, you know, if a product is not doing as well as it, functionality is not working, it's causing issues at a customer. The customer knows that as a PM, you're with them and they can trust you. And therefore, you know, avoid any headwinds that may otherwise occur. And then we already discussed how part of this relationship is also that a PM has the ability to say no, and that's one of their key responsibilities as well, especially when, you know, you get into a solution in conversations for a variety of reasons, right? Lack of critical mass, not fitting into the overall vision of the product, et cetera. But even when you have these difficult conversations with customers, because you're a trusted partner, customers will be willing to have those conversations. Let's move on to the next one, right? There's another one where I have a lot of personal experience to share as well. So a PM's job is to influence and negotiate with stakeholders, influence your product team and steer them towards a common goal, motivate them towards a common goal. But sometimes what happens is, and for good reason in some scenarios as well, right? Which is there are a lot of functions that PMs work with, documentation, engineering, user experience. But PM might feel the urge to actually fill in one of those functions as well, because they want to be a team player, right? And my take on this is to proceed with caution. And here are some of the reasons why, right? So like we discussed, the PM is sort of a leader of a cross-functional team, right? They have a lot of responsibility. They don't have direct authority over that team, right? Their job is to influence this cross-functional team and influence their roadmap, right? Influence their priorities and negotiate with them towards a particular goal. You do that using data, you do that using justification and evidence, all of that good stuff, right? Because they interact with all of these teams, they have sort of a high-level knowledge of all of these functions, right? They have engineering documentation, user experience, support, marketing, legal. And what happens is because a PM is a highly motivated individual, sometimes when one of these functions may not be coming on board because they have other priorities or because there is a lack of resourcing, a PM may think that it is their job to fill in that function. They want to be a team player. They want to make progress. And I've done this in the past, right? Like I said, my background is a software engineer. I have a tendency where, for example, a customer issue comes from a high-priority customer. I want to not disturb my engineering team. And this used to be me a couple of years ago, right? Which is, let's not sidetrack the engineering team. Let's keep them focused. Why can't I step in and build out the future, right? Or build out that bug fix or whatever that is, right? For what goes sort of, again, underrated is the term, is it's not about fixing something and giving it to a customer, right? Or it's not about building a future and giving it to a customer. It's about what happens later. Can you support it for a sustained amount of time? Can you, is there a repeatable solution? If the customer has a problem with something that you've developed, do you have resources to handle those problems, right? Is the problem that you're working on even important at the point in time, right? And there are a lot of perils to the substitution, right? So like I said, from my example, I clearly remember this one situation that happened to me, which is, you know, I went in, implemented something, sent it to the customer, worked fine, right? A few days later, a few weeks later, discovered that there was an unintended side effect from that. And the fix for the side effect, unfortunately, was like we call as a blocker issue that required a lot more investment than the original bug fix itself, or the original fix itself, right? And so now I have to actually, you know, reprioritize a larger chunk of my learning resources in order to get this high priority fix out of the way, right? So essentially, I think what happens in these scenarios is, one, it is taking time away from your data, the job, right? This is not your core responsibility, right? It could lead to substandard results because that's not, you know, your primary skill set as a PN, right? It can also lead to solutions that work like classic case, the example that I mentioned, right? It can also work, you know, at a point in time, it can also work a problem. But unless you have some sort of support plan, the repeatability, right? As to who is going to handle any request that comes from customers about the thing that you, you know, substituted for, it's going to be a problem, not just for you, but for your larger product team for customers as well, right? One of the other, perhaps even bigger sort of side effects of this is as a PN, you might give the feeling to your cross-functional team that there isn't so much autonomy, that you're actually going and doing their job, right? And that can have in some scenarios an extremely drastic impact on team morale, right? So you have to be very careful, right? But having said that, it is a reality of times, especially in smaller companies, especially in new initiatives at larger companies where you may have to substitute as a PN. My advice when you do that is proceed with caution. Make sure that you have a long-term plan. Once that is in place, a temporary effort here and it might be good. But also take your team into confidence and make sure that they know that you're doing this and we're adding this to the product and then the whole cross-functional team is to support it. And the last one for today is, so we've spoken a lot about a PN's job towards their product, towards making their product a success, making their customers successful, etc. The last one is more about you as PN's, right? Or all of us as PN's, right? A PN is not a 9-to-5 job. And I want to be very careful when I say this. The beyond 9-to-5 aspect of the job is not necessarily for your product. It's not what earns bread and butter for you, but it's what sets you up for bigger and brighter success for growth in the future, right? So let's talk a little bit more about this, right? So we've discussed so far that product management can be a complex and high-pressure job, right? There's also a depth of education. There's not a lot of courses on product management, right? That's slowly changing, but you don't get out with a degree in product management typically. There are certifications that have started now. Product school has started something, but that's all very recent, right? So, and then in the role itself, there is a lot of fluidity. Each industry has its own way of product management. Each business type has its own way. A startup has its way versus a large company has its way, right? And so it all, you know, the role itself can be a kitchen sink of responsibility. Say if something cannot be done by a different team, by a different function, or maybe it's a responsibility of the PM, right? That's also the tendency. How great PMs navigate this, you know, these responsibilities is with an insatiable urge to learn, right? And what they do is, you know, beyond their day job, right? They invest in their career, right? They invest in learning. They invest in keeping up-to-date with the market, the domain that they want to excel at, et cetera. They invest in personal growth. You cannot only rely upon organic growth from your day job to grow as a PM, right? You may have, you have to invest in yourself, treat your career as a product itself. You have the skills of product development and product management, right? Apply them to your career, right? Focus on personal growth, spend time on market watching your trends, new business opportunities, right? This is outside, you know, what you do day to day, right? Domain knowledge, again, very, very important, depending on what domain you are in. You may want to spend time as to what, to get a better understanding of that domain outside of your product, right? These days, this has become a little easier. There is no depth of information on the internet. There are lots of certifications, lots of product management journals, publications, lots of key personalities on the internet that you can follow and, you know, get a lot of knowledge from. There's a lot of blogs. Twitter is great. Slack is great. But above all, what my recommendation would be, get a mentor for yourself. That is, it is... I cannot say this enough. It is extremely critical. And the other side also, once you feel like you are in a good place, think about getting to the other side of the table as well, be a mentor, share your knowledge. You know, that also helps you grow, right? So essentially invest in yourself. So that was it for today. Here are some links that I really, really found interesting, not just in relation to the stock, but also wider, you know, implications to product management. And some of these have made me, I feel, a much better product manager than I was a few years ago as well. So yeah, thanks for listening in today. It was great sharing some of these tidbits with you. Hope you found it useful. Have a great rest of your day.


Good morning. I'm Kathy Fletcher, CEO of Voices for Children of San Antonio. Welcome to our third live-streamed event. We're thrilled to have over 1,100 participants from all over the state of Texas, 10 different states, and four foreign countries. Voices for Children is a child advocacy organization focused on working with many community partners and stakeholders to improve programs and policies that affect the most vulnerable children. As several hundred of you from our area know, Voices with many partner organizations and local and state lawmakers has been hosting free all-day professional development events for several years. We can't hold large in-person events right now, and this is a very new way of doing things for us, but we're really sold on it and plan to continue. We're planning these events to focus on issues that are relevant in the current public health crisis. We know that the children you serve and that we all care about have lost ground socially and in their learning. Many have had traumatic and scary experiences. We know that you're here because you want to support them when they come back to you. Voices is so proud to partner on this event with child care group headquartered in Dallas, one of our state's oldest and largest providers of early childhood education. Their CEO, Tori Manas, will join us in just a few minutes. Before we begin, we want to thank our generous sponsors. HEB, our wonderful San Antonio-based grocery chain and always committed to the community, and PNC Bank, a strong supporter of child care group and early childhood education. Also in San Antonio, the Judge Andy Medellis Charitable Foundation. We are so grateful for their support. They make this possible. We'd like to thank Nowcast and thank them a lot. Nowcast SA and Charlotte Ann Lucas, the producers of this event. They're behind the scenes and they know more about this technology than the rest of us could ever hope to. Also in the background are Miranda Cushman and Eli Escamilla, Voices staff. They will be monitoring the chat room and can answer some questions or concerns or minor tech problems that come up. So thanks, guys. A little housekeeping. There will be a break and an interactive portion of the event. So please have some art supplies handy. We'd love for participants to share their artwork on our Facebook and Instagram pages. Be sure to tag Voices for Children and Child Care Group. The photos with the most likes for each organization will be sent a copy of the Rhino Who Swallowed a Storm and a copy of Sun Kisses, Moon Hugs. About your certificates, make sure you stick around for the link to the required post event survey in order to receive your certificate. The certificates documented your hours are not automatic. They will be sent by email to you within three business days. Now I have the honor of introducing two of our very dedicated state legislators. They're here because they understand the importance of the work you do and of the first several years of a child's life. Okay, it is my true pleasure to introduce Representative Rafael Anciya, a Texas champion for children and families. Representative Anciya brings his school board experience, education, intelligence, commitment, and a big heart to the Capitol. He's currently serving his eighth term in the Texas legislature and represents the western corridor of Dallas County, including the cities of Dallas, Farmer's Branch and Irving. Representative Anciya currently chairs the House Committee on International Relations and Economic Development and is a member of several other House committees. He graduated cum laude from SMU and received his law degree from Tulane University Law School. As the devoted father of two daughters, Representative Anciya understands the importance of promoting the social emotional health of young children. He has devoted his public service life to fighting for civil rights, public education, protecting the environment and improving access to health care for women and children. Welcome, Representative Anciya. We're so glad you're here. Thank you for that kind introduction. It's so good to be with everyone this morning. When my friends at the child care group asked me to provide some welcome remarks, I was really honored to participate. I know there are over 1,100 people out there, and not only from the United States, but from our friends internationally, and I want to welcome you to this gathering. And I was trying to think a little bit about early childhood and how I've come to this issue. And I was thinking back to two very important seminal experiences that I had. And I'll start with the most contemporary first. And that is as a baby lawyer back in 1994, I went to what is called the get on board fair that the Center for Nonprofit Management puts on in Dallas County. And I was looking to get involved in some sort of public service. I wanted to participate as a board member in an NGO. I just didn't know when it were to start. And I was walking around this this fair, the get on board fair. And I came across a little table that was staffed by a spectacular woman named Alice Escobar. And I hope she's on today. But Alice was looking to start a child development services facility in in really what was a child care desert in the Love Field area that I'm honored to represent now. And she was looking for board members and I didn't think I had very much to offer. But I walked on over and talked to her a little bit. And she said, Well, why don't you consider joining our board?  I don't I don't even know how to turn the printer on at the law firm. So but but if I can offer some of my skills and some of the things I benefited from in my life to this service, that would be great. So we we had a really successful run where we were serving about 150 students in the Love Field area, young, young, everything from infants to four year olds at the time. And I know it made an impact on not only those young people's lives, but their parents lives as well. And then the other experience I'd just like to share with you to let you know why I care about this issue is one of the things that's not included in my bio, but is is important in the in the way I see the world is that I'm the son of immigrants to this country and my mother's from Mexico, my father's from Spain. And I remember when I was a little boy, my father lost his job and he was unemployed for for a long while. And we we had to move in with relatives. I remember this for two reasons. One is that it was a very tough time in our family's life because my dad was out looking for a job. My mother was working very, very hard. And I needed people to help me through that period. And in this little two bedroom house, we had three seniors, my mother and my father, no, which is my godmother and godfather, and my parents and then me. So you can understand that between Doña Esperanza, which lived in the house, that means hope. Doña salvation, we used to call her Salva. That means salvation. These seniors took care of me and gave me all the love and attention probably more than I even deserved or needed at the time. But it allowed my parents to get back on their feet because we had people who would speak to me in Spanish and English, who gave me a lot of love who fed me who took care of me. And I reflect on that experience because there are a lot of families who don't have that. And that's what that's the important role that our child care facilities fill today. And I know this is a very delicate time and I've been on a lot of calls with either HHSC, the Texas Workforce Commission and the committee that I chair has oversight over the Texas Workforce Commission and their child care program.  You're thinking about your employees, you're thinking about those families you serve, and you're worried about the coronavirus. So I really want to empathize with you because you're filling such an important gap for essential workers throughout our economy. And you at the same time are trying to keep your business as a float during what is a recession and hopefully not going into a depression. There are a couple of bright notes and I know that you come to this conference trying to understand if there's hope here at the end of the process. And there are two things I want to signal. And that is a growing, the first thing is a growing bipartisan effort. And I was on a call earlier this week, again, with the governor's office, TWC, HHSC and others, because we still have about $171 million of CARES Act money that is yet to be deployed in this state. And the question came up during that meeting about, hey, is there a deadline for us to put that money out? And both Republicans and Democrats were of the mind that we needed to get that money out to our child care providers throughout the system, because at this point, this is a very delicate tipping point for many of you, it may be existential. So we are growing a bipartisan movement in the state to try to get you some help. And the second thing I want to point out is that there is going to be a important focus on child care during the next session. In the committee that I chair, we are going to be kicking off a, I won't call it a hearing, but a town hall meeting on the importance of child care for the recovery of the economy of our state. And that's going to be right out of the gate, our first interim work. And so we're going to be inviting a lot of the people from around the state, the subject matter experts like Tori Manis from the area that I represent, who's a dear friend, a longtime friend, to give us ideas and experiences about how we can best deploy that money and make sure that your businesses can be stay intact, can essentially be backstopped financially by the state and at the same time play an important role in people's lives for recovery. With that, I don't want to speak any longer because you're going to be hearing from some very important people today, not the least of which is someone whom I have the extreme good fortune of serving with in the Texas legislature. And that's Inamin Harris. Now, if you don't know Ina, she is a force of nature. She is not only someone who I really enjoy locking arms with in the Texas legislature to fight the good fight on issues like child care, but also someone who represents Bear County well in just a very short period of time. She's become a leader in that delegation. And I'm so very proud to share this opening, these opening remarks with her. So with that, I want to yield it back to our organizers. Thank you so much for allowing me to be part of this. And to my really close friend, Ina, I send you regards from North Texas. And I hope I can see you in person soon. Thank you. Thank you so much, Representative. We are just so honored. And if there's any, and I don't want to say good, it's a shame that it has taken so many tragedies to show how absolutely critical the child care industry is to children, to families, to the economy. The economy cannot reopen if there's no one to take care of the children. I'd also like to say that I'm also the child of immigrants. And on our voices website, one of the things you will see is a picture of the Statue of Liberty, which is has been very important to my family and continues to be. So now it's my honor to introduce Representative Ina Minhatas, born and raised in El Paso, Representative Minhatas graduated from Notre Dame and from St. Mary's School of Law in San Antonio. As a young attorney, she represented children who were victims of abuse and neglect in the child welfare system, and later served as Assistant Criminal District Attorney in Bear County, prosecuting perpetrators of crimes against children. Representative Minhatas was elected in a special election in April 2015 and has served constituents of District 124 in Bear County since that time. She was named Rookie of the Year during the 85th legislative session, received a Certificate of Appreciation from the Department of Defense for her support of military service members and received the Women's Advocacy Award from the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Representative Minhatas has actively proposed and helped pass legislation to support vulnerable children and foster care and to effect needed improvements in the child welfare system to improve access to substance abuse treatment, therapy services to address cyberbullying and to expand public school pre-k. She's been a strong and consistent advocate for the most vulnerable children and is committed to working to resolve social inequities. She's also been a good friend to voices and a supporter of our city's collaborative efforts in trauma-informed care. I'm so proud to welcome Representative Ina Minhatas of San Antonio. Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Kathy, for having me here this morning. And I want to give a warm welcome to my dear friend and chairman, Rafael Lancia. It's because I have watched him on the house floor and some of the biggest fights that I have really learned from him. And I appreciate his support for all of the sessions that I have served. What I want to say this morning, everybody, is we are in such a critical time. I want to take the opportunity to thank each and every one of you. Your service to children is not unnoticed. This morning, I was watching the news as I normally do at five in the morning when I wake up. And there was a story of a four-year-old little girl named Blake MacLennan. You may have seen her on social media. There were shared postings of her having a meltdown because of the pandemic. And that really struck me because I don't think there really has been truly an emphasis on what are our young children growing through. You know, she was having this meltdown and it really touched my heart and can only imagine how do you bring comfort to that child? And how can you explain what's going on so that they understand and what coping mechanisms do we give them? And so it is so critical, the role that you all play in that. Families are going through a lot of stress. Economically, many have lost jobs. Many have lost loved ones. Some are getting sick. Some don't know how they're going to pay for their health care. And this all affects the family unit. And I know many of you are at the front line. Many of you may have been exposed to COVID. Many of you may have lost loved ones. Many of you may have employees that have been exposed as well. And I want to take this opportunity to know that we will continue being your voices at the Capitol. I hope that leadership finally understands the critical role that you all play, the need that funding, proper funding, be put towards childcare and early intervention for children. This is this this pandemic has really highlighted the gaps that needed to be addressed. So I want to thank you for being here this morning. I'm so looking forward to our presenters and seeing how we all can be that village of support for you all and for our children of the state of Texas. Many of you come from throughout the United States. We have folks from not only Texas but California, Connecticut, Los Angeles, and internationally all the way from India, from Germany, from England.  So again, thank you for taking this beautiful Sunday, I mean Saturday this weekend so that we can all come together and figure out how we can provide the necessary support for our children and for our childcare providers. Thank you all so much. Honored to have you fighting for children in our state Capitol. Now it's time for the program. So enjoy the rest of the day. Thank you.


Different nutrient mitigation measures have been installed into agricultural landscape around the Baltic Sea, but not always these measures have been implemented based on local conditions. And the Water Drive project aims to create tools and provide knowledge needed to change this attitude so that these measures would be implemented based on site-specific conditions and targeted implementation and this way we could increase efficiency and also cost-effectiveness of measures implemented. Retention measures are those which have been installed into agricultural landscape to reduce nutrient and sediment transport and these measures are, for example, constructed wetlands, two-stage ditches, sedimentation ponds, bottom dams, meandering and controlled drainage.


what's up what's going on you guys and welcome back welcome back to another video and to another rugby player reacts to the 2020 NFL scouting combine video it's a new day we got up to Justin Herbert the Oregon quarterback who was six foot seven and 236 pounds we're about to watch his full NFL scouting combine workout we're doing that because before I go into the draft we've got seven more videos I want to watch the entire combine I want to watch as much as I can I want to get as much information about these players as I can before going watching the draft and seeing where they place seeing where they fall rather so with that said the next video on the list is Justin Herbert the only thing I watched originally was the 40-yard dashes and I know that it doesn't show you a lot it shows you 40 yards in a straight line and nothing else so so you know it would have been a huge disservice to myself to my viewers and to everyone involved if I didn't look at every one of the combine videos before looking at the draft so that's what we're doing Justin Herbert the quarterback for Oregon it is four minutes and ten seconds long I've got a fresh plunger coffee for the day few coffee drinkers out there you might be feeling a little bit jealous right now because this is looking fan-fucking-tastic and so is Justin Herbert's Oregon uniform actually and his haircut oh yes please Justin Herbert the old Herbster hey starting off with the 40-yard dash which I've already seen that it's okay probably why I never see ya probably why I never have time for the big friends I won't be yeah 471 I think Jerry Rice runner 471 this guy could be a receiver actually I've seen some of these long balls man this guy has a 65-yard bomb that doesn't even look like he's trying well 2019 William v. Campbell trophy winner I've never heard of that nation's best football scholar athlete really are you the nation's smartest football player more aggressive and enter into that attack mode sometimes he plays a little bit too cautious physical ability that you have to have to be one of those super echelons quarterbacks in the NFL and still questioning whether he's got that nice catch but there's a great bridge there not to cut you off as as DJ was talking about a lot of times when you watch Herbert throw it's almost like he's aiming you know we always say as a quarterback you just got to get back and let it go you got to trust yourself and let it go but a lot of times it looks like he's aiming now you saw that on that first landing you know as we watch Justin Herbert come up here you know Kurt Justin Herbert never took a snap under center in college this is all brand new for him as well as this for a lot of these guys when you talk about that I know he never took a snap under center does that mean there was always a long snap back to the quarterback which I can't remember what that's called is it called I formation I formation no I'm not sure does that affect you well big part of that is the ability to get your weight going back and get set on the top of the route because if you're talking about shotgun there's not as much movement back there you don't have to really get your body going shotgun okay so under center is basically being handed the ball by the center and then balance back up so that's one of the things that you got to pay attention to is how does he get balanced up and the timing of his feet on the back of his drop to be able to get that football line one of the NFL 100 sees how you saw leading to obviously this non-playing season beginning with this 2020 come by nice throw there by Justin Herbert has been much more comfortable really pushing this ball down the field absolute bomb you see him starting to let it go a little bit down there yeah I mean I think this is where he finds his groove or he's not worried so much about the work in those types of things and he can just kind of set when I was watching the quarterbacks work out he was the first one off the block and his throws were the longest were the highest and with the throws that took the least effort but in saying that this guy is six foot over six foot six I mean his his leverages would be incredible I'd love to know his arms there normally we talk about 42 to 44 on these go routes he's letting it go a little bit farther he's throwing it from the 10 landing at the 40 that's 50 but the guy was consistently catching it at the 35 so that's 55 yards 35 yard bombs and he's meant to be going for 42 to 44 yards but he's just chucking a little bit extra on there so these receivers will be thinking fuck I'm gonna catch it around about the 50 yard line but with his throws they're gonna be quite aware and look up early to make sure that they're running at the right cadence you could say to catch it on the fly all right 60 holy shit I just looked up in the previous video what is the fastest throw ever recorded and it was 60 miles per hour at the combine Justin Herbert just Justin Herbert just equaled the all-time record for velocity throwing the football at the NFL combine it's gonna do it five when they move up to three with Detroit what you know will another team be open for business and is there anything to the burrow bangles yeah that ain't easy to throw that ain't easy to throw one bit you know and what about this kid the ball is deceptively big you've heard his name you know mentioned probably you might be lucky to get one maybe two how about the egg bowl laying two fingers on the laces how about that thanksgiving will never be the press conference for the egg bowl it's Herbert again get that that was what Kurt when we've been talking a little bit trying to guide that one just just let it go man let it rip that was better that one's better you're always looking for that turnover too right we're saying on these deep balls you want to 35 and you want to throw it up in the air with the same follow through so it gets that where is he throwing it he's throwing it at the team okay some of these are coming out too flat that struggling to get the turnover 10-5 in the broad jump Johnson man let us as of today Charles Davis 36 yeah that's that's ridiculous man that is ridiculous that that that guy could 360 dunk no doubt no fucking doubt but he's playing football instead people might want to play quarterback turn on tape and see it this just confirmed what he is okay sweet all right so now we've got we've got four top prospects in my head as far as quarterbacks go we've got Joe bangle we've got Joe bangle he's going to the Bengals Joe Joe burrow Joe burrow Jalen hurts no sorry Joe burrow tongue of our lower Jalen hurts and now Justin Herbert okay that is I think that's the end of our individual quarterback workouts I'm quite excited about this next video because we have the best of the running back workouts at the 2020 NFL scouting combine the first one on the list his name is Deondre swift now forgive me but it's been a couple of months since I watched the 40 hour dashes I don't remember any names I don't remember well actually remember one name one running back that ran a 4 4 flat and he looked extremely impressive but that would be the only one I still don't know his name so with that being said we're going in with a clean slate and I like that if you have enjoyed this video please hit the like button if you want to subscribe for more please do I'll be back here in five minutes after a few more sips and we'll be looking at some running backs so I'll see you there


Hello everyone, welcome back to another video. So this video is probably going to be shorter than normal But I saw this great tip online and thought it'd be worth sharing with you in case you have some use for it So in this scenario a very basic two column table here We've got a list of results and simply here I want a visual or a visual way of Representing obviously the size difference between all these numbers. So I'm going to create a bar chart or a single bar for each One so in order to do that all we simply need to do here is go Equals RPT. So as in short for repeat open brackets for this example I'm going to use the vertical line. So to do that I want to do the quotations holding down a shift the vertical line depending on where is on your keyboard and the quotation there go comma and then how many times do I want to repeat this number? So for me, I want to do it 60 Well, I don't want to just do it 60. I want to select obviously this cell which contains my first value Hit enter and you can see obviously it's now given me 60 Repetitions of that simple are provided if I was to put something like a P in here But the letter P you can see it's going to give me 60 of them But for this example as will become clear in a minute We're going to be using the vertical line if I simply copy that down you can see how it's replicated for all of those other rows and We can see because it's going to repeat it a number of times We've got the actual true scale comparison between each of these columns Not even a column. Sorry each of the rows So what I'm going to do next is literally highlight these rows in question Obviously depending if your range is larger and we're going to go up here and in our font selection We're going to type the word play and you'll see we get the option of play bill Simply all I'm going to do is hit enter and you can see we've now got this great bar For each of those rows So you could stop here if that's as far as you want to go to Although I'm going to take it one step further and add some conditional formatting to really get a good Difference or differentiate between these rows. I'm going to simply copy or note highlight all that range and by default I want to change the font color to orange So let's go into our drop down here and select orange and then so we can see by default of the orange So let's just re-select this range and this time go into conditional formatting and go into create a new new role a new rule Sorry if I get the words out and the option I want here is use a formula to determine which cells to format and simply all I'm going to do here is go equals length So this is going to be counting the length or the number of characters available in a cell But the first one to do is select the first cell in my range, which for me is going to be C5 Close brackets and the rule for this one is if it's 75 or greater So what I'm going to do is if it's greater than 74 so obviously 75 and above I want to change the Font color to a green. So once that opens up, we can see we're in the font tab Let's go down and select a nice green or don't know if I've got any nice Well, they go that there's a green we get the idea here and we'll select okay here and we'll go okay again So what you can see what's happened there now is any value 75 and greater we can see it's now changed to green So what I'm going to do is select our range once again conditional formatting new rule Use a formula to determine which cells to format and then in here will do equals LEN open brackets And we'll again go C5. That's the first one in my range close brackets. So this time we want anything that is less than 25 If it's less than 25, I want to change the font color to red. So we go get a red there Click okay. Click. Okay. Once again, and you can see only one of the values is obviously Falling into that criteria. So let's say we change this 65 to maybe 15 Enter you can see it's now gonna not only change the size of that bar But it's also going to change it to red because it's less than our criteria of 25 again sticking the same one Let's just try and make this one 50. You can see it's going to orange. Let's make it to a number 75 or above so they're 95 and you can now see we've got the green So it's a really dynamic solution and it's a great way to take a very simple Single column of data and represent that visually via a bar chart So I hope you found that video useful and whether you have some use for it now or maybe have it in the future Hopefully this will be a good tip that you can use in your Excel files If you did enjoy that video, please don't forget to like the video and also subscribe to the channel So you're notified as soon as you bring out any future videos And if you do have any questions about this video, just drop me a comment below and I'll get back to you As soon as I can so thanks again for watching and we'll see you in the next video


I'd like to ask my question. I can go to the states with you when we see them. Mercedes, Mercedes, okay. Why are you doing that? Because it appears that it's just a so doubt in the minds of people about whether their votes are going to matter. Why are you trying, so then why are you trying to ensure that some people won't be able to vote? Okay, to pass the ballot three days after the election, let me ask you that question. If everyone's, no, you just said, you just said. Mercedes, Mercedes. If you just, Mercedes, you just said that everybody, you were just stating, why are you talking, so then why are you talking down, why are you villainizing mail-in voting, which would give people the ability to practice their right as an American and vote? I'm gonna ask you again. Do you think it's okay after November 3rd to be able to cast the ballot three days after or seven days after the election? November 3rd. Mercedes, you're saying that voter fraud is a thing and I'm telling you that it's not. Don't you worry that that's going to actually hurt you? I mean, isn't that to the point why the president has said when it comes? Okay. Mercedes, I'm asking, Mercedes, Mercedes, this is just pointless, okay? This is pointless.   Can I tell you what now? Let me tell you if you have- No, no, no, we're talking about voting in a pandemic. What exactly is the job of a journalist? I thought it was to act as an objective arbiter and disseminator of information. Their entire purpose is supposed to be to ask questions without a political agenda, but what we continue to see from our former free press is an almost cult-like dedication to burying the truth in favor of pushing the political agenda of the far left and Democrat party. We're gonna dig into this ridiculous interview, but first, give me a quick moment to tell you about this special offer from this episode's sponsor, My Patriot Supply. 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So go to www.preparewithdronetech.com and get ready right now. That's www.preparewithdronetech.com. Do it now. Mercedes. Of the election. November 30th. Mercedes, you're saying that voter fraud is a thing and I'm telling you that it's not. That's why you get segments like this one where something as serious as overhauling our entire election system just three months before the election is treated as unseriously as Hollywood gossip. You just claim that voter fraud's not a thing. Well, this isn't just about voter fraud anyway. It's about people's votes actually getting to their destination. And if it does reach its destination, then it passes scrutiny of election officials. I mean, seriously, besides voter fraud, here's a list of all the problems associated with mail-in voting. You would expect an actual professional journalist to dig for the truth and scrutinize both sides of an argument. But instead, what we find are these media snake oil salesmen covering up the inconvenient information and then working to smear or discredit anybody who brings up that information. I'd like to ask my question. I can go to the states with you when we see them. Mercedes, Mercedes, okay. Why are you doing that? Because it appears that it's just so doubt in the minds of people about whether their votes are going to matter. Did anybody else notice how hard it was to hear anything she was saying? Oh, I'm sure it was just technical issues. Also notice how this host plays the part of a parent trying to calm down an unruly child. The guest is just trying to get a word in, but the host keeps talking over them in the most condescending tone possible. While she talks over this guest, she's putting words in her mouth and throwing out multiple red herrings. At one point, the host claims, quote, it seems like you're just trying to sow doubt that people's votes are gonna matter. Okay, well, besides the fact that's exactly what CNN and the rest of the media have been doing since 2016, that's not at all what this person was trying to do. She's not sowing doubt. She's asking obvious questions that should be asked by this alleged journalist. Why are you trying, so then why are you trying to ensure that some people won't be able to vote? Okay, to pass the ballot three days after the election. Let me ask you that question.  Okay, to pass the ballot for the days after the election. What? How was she trying to ensure that some people won't be able to vote? Absentee ballots have been available for a long time, but given the history, I don't know why anybody would wanna vote that way unless they absolutely had to. That's a major part of the concern here. Votes that never reached their destination because they were lost or votes that are thrown out because the signature or the address didn't match or they just simply didn't mean any of a dozen different criteria. Throughout the segment, this fraud of a journalist completely ignores not only past issues with mail-in voting, but recent ones as well. Right now in New York City, they're in the midst of a major fiasco involving mail-in ballots. Surprisingly, even NBC News reported this story. Tonight, six weeks after the New York Democratic primary congressional candidate, Suraj Patel, doesn't know if he won or lost because election officials have yet to announce a winner. It was just a complete mess of a system. Experts tell NBC News New York election officials were woefully unprepared. So those ballots, thousands of them were not counted. Why are you trying? So then why are you trying to ensure that some people won't be able to vote? Time to stop. Mercedes. Of the election. Remember. Mercedes, vote. You're saying that voter fraud is a thing and I'm telling you that it's not, okay? This is pointless. I get it.   Can I tell you what? No. Let me tell you. No, no, we're talking about voting in a pandemic. Why are you talking down? Why are you villainizing mail-in voting? See there, she claims the guest is villainizing mail-in voting, but that's not what she's doing. She's just asking questions. Something this journalist should be doing, but she's not because it's not her job. While CNN and the rest of the Democrat media are trying to discredit and smear anybody who questions or scrutinizes mail-in voting, there are people out there who are raising questions. And is it any wonder? Currently, there's only five states that allow mail-in voting. The rest of the country simply doesn't have the infrastructure in place to handle a national presidential election by mail. Maybe we could put that into place over the course of the next few years, but not two months before an election. But don't take my word for it. How about Edward Foley, who is director of the election law program at Ohio State University? He said postal ballots have been the source of quote, the most significant voting recount disputes in recent decades. While absentee ballots can help keep people safe and expand voting access, they come with a drawback, a greater chance of litigation. Simply put, there are more things that can go wrong with vote by mail compared to in precinct voting. Given its limited implementation so far in this country, it seems like a completely insane proposition to implement it nationwide just a couple months before the actual election.   And it was CBS News that just released their own study of mail-in voting, which found that 27% of their ballots got lost in the mail. When we went to collect everything, though, most of our votes seem to be lost. 21% of our votes hadn't materialized after four days. 97 arrived, which sounds pretty good, unless you consider the fact that that means three people who tried to vote by mail in our mock election were in fact disenfranchised by mail. In a close election, 3% could be pivotal. From my perspective, it seems like it's CNN and the rest of the media that are pushing this mail-in voting that want people to think their votes aren't gonna matter. Why can't people go out and vote? They can go out to the grocery and other stores by social distancing and wearing their masks. Why can't they do that for voting? Why would the exact same social distancing guidelines not apply? We all know the answer to that. It's these contradictions and these hypocrisies that lead people to distrust the media and it's only getting worse. A new poll from Gallup and the Left Leaning Night Foundation shows that America's trust in media continues to plummet with pretty much only Democrats still trusting them. So this is what the study found. Americans think the media is vital for democracy. The vast majority of Americans, 84% say the news media is critical. Half, 49% of all Americans think the media is very biased. Americans think the media is pushing an agenda. Three in four people, 74% worry that owners of media companies are influencing coverage up five points since 2017. They also suspect that any accuracies in reporting are purposeful, with 54% believing that reporters misrepresent the facts and 28% believe reporters make them up entirely. And of course, distrust of the media cuts along partisan lines for obvious reasons. I know folks, I know. It's rough to see this blatant gaslighting day in and day out. It's having its desired effect on people too. I see it all around me. But we have to continue to press forward to continue to expose the corrupt media and go out and vote in November. You can help me continue this fight by supporting this channel's sponsors or by donating to one of the platforms that are listed in the description or pinned comment. Thanks for watching. Keep coming back.