This is a story about people, people who happen to live in a town called Santa Rosa, California, which is about 60 miles north of San Francisco. It's the story about a home for six young men who happen to be persons who had the condition of autism, their parents, a service club, a political party, a church that all came together to bring to pass a very significant community project. It was a project that involved a spiritual and emotional and physical experience for each of us that were involved. In one day, a house was repainted inside and out. Numerous additions were made to the interior to make life easier. A new lawn and a brick walkway were put in and in a 12-hour period from 7 in the morning until 7 at night, a sense of community really took place. It's a project that can be repeated any place in the state of California. For me, it was a formative experience. It has instilled in me a deep and abiding concern for people with disabilities.  It showed to me that public-private partnership projects could be done successfully, that it really, all it takes is identifying a legitimate need or concern at the local level and then marshaling the resources to address that need. And I look for opportunities constantly where the government and the private sector and the charitable sector can come together to produce some sort of community benefit and address local needs. I think all too often we have a tendency to look to Big Brother to resolve our needs at either the state or the federal government level when in reality the ability to address so many of our needs lies within us, within our hearts, if only we're willing to open up our hearts and to give generously. I think people would be rather amazed as we were in doing the Benton House Project at the response of the community. There are many, many people out there who are very well-meaning and well-intentioned, who want to get involved, who want to help, who want to make a difference, who are only waiting to be asked. And I know it sounds like I'm saying, proceed on faith and faith alone, but faith is a big factor in doing a project like Benton House. Well in the beginning I think we thought that government should be the answer and the only answer. And we realized very quickly that there really was more that we needed to give and more that we needed to do within the community. By only using government as the answer we found that we were very isolated and that isolation really was causing a lot of problems. It was causing burnout, staff turnover, low staff morale, burnout with the board and with the parents because we really didn't have the community support. And it was actually these problems and limited resources that caused us to take another step and to try something that was very risky for us, which was to go outside of ourselves and to do something that we hadn't done before, which was to ask for help. They wanted to help the business community, the service clubs, the churches, other providers. They really wanted to help. They just needed to be asked. And the thing that I learned in this kind of outreach is that really it's a partnership. And what we asked for was not a handout but a helping hand. And people are willing to give you a helping hand. And it was the way that finally we became fully integrated into the community. Before that time we were in our own isolation, we were coping the best we could together. But until we reached out and we admitted that we needed help and these wonderful people in our community came forward to help, we really weren't part of the fabric of the community. And what I loved about it so much was the interaction between the clients, the staff and the community members because it really was the best education we could have ever possibly done. They learned, we all learned so much. Working with the leaders of the community, we saw real need. We saw a whole area of our community that really weren't being taken care of as a community. It had been the time that the state had been taking care of these people and had basically let them go out in the community. We saw an easy way, an easy approach to get them in a facility with people of their own and a mutual kind of thing between the community and the politicals. And I think it worked out, we saw it come together and I can't be any happier and I'm sure you can't either of what really has happened. But through Rotary and through some of my other connections we found it very easy. When we told them what it was about, we came with some slide programs to our Rotary and kind of went through an education process for ourselves as well as our members and it's kind of told the story and it was very, very easy. It all started with a budget and what they really needed and we had some key people go into this particular house on Benton Street here in Santa Rosa see what the real needs were, for instance a washing machine dryer, what was a real need, the linoleum floor was a need, some kitchen facilities they needed, we saw they needed some heat so we had a heat stove there, a ventilating system we saw a need for some fans, some air in the place and then of course the painting and the work that went on outside, making it a nice presentable unit that somebody felt when they come there it was a house that cared. I remember it took a lot of coordination, a lot of meetings, a lot of phone calls, it did actually start, it happened on one Saturday but it actually started prior to that we had to get a hold of electricians and floor people and ordering fireplace inserts and fans it was a lot of activity, a lot of like I said phone calls and making contacts prior to the event and the day itself it was quite busy, there were so many people here you couldn't keep track of them there was painting all over the offices, the house, people laying floors inside the house putting the ceiling fans up and delivering bricks outside and doing landscaping it was quite an event, it was really something to have everybody there at the end of the day we actually had a ribbon cutting ceremony and we had an assemblyman, supervisor, mayor and some of the parents and board members of our agency and it was something so I'm sure everyone who came out felt really good about painting the house alongside of an autistic person who was maybe they helped them a little bit or just getting to know an agency such as ours and the clients that we serve, we are part of the community and most people I don't think own that they don't own the fact that a residential home in their community is part of their community we're not these strange people that moved into their neighborhood and we don't belong there we do belong there, our clients are the children of other people who live in the community it's just a different lifestyle, it's a different group of people living next door it's interesting because the more you get to know about autism and are around autistic people the more you realize I think that there's a little bit of autism in everybody many times people are not aware of the needs of people such as myself and our guys recently a wonderful organization that I had spoken at I was talking about our need for our guys to get vocational training in the community well one of the gentlemen called me two days later offering jobs for some of our guys to work there so I think that there are a variety of ways that organizations and people can help in the community and I would like to see more projects put together it was a good example of what community involvement can do to help organizations like ours to accomplish some of the things that we can't do ourselves because basically of lack of manpower and our devotion to the problems of taking care of the young men here that's the main focus of California programs for the autistic so anyone who can or any organization that can come along like the Rotary Club in this case and help to do what they did we were and still are very grateful for that sort of help and we would always welcome any groups or individuals who would be interested to do this sort of thing for us it was a wonderful experience typical example of maybe it's a I don't want to use the word corny but of community involvement in a local project like this it made us feel good that they would take the trouble to do something like that and we wish that it would happen oftener because our needs continue in so many ways but for that particular occasion it was very satisfying to be involved in that and then I think almost by accident the people in Benton House said to me if this house could be repeated we could double what we're doing well that was a challenge to me and I think it can be said that I accepted that challenge and said we will go ahead and we will get a house so that Benton House could be repeated Benton House is a very nice place and it's in a good neighborhood but I thought we could make a better step by going into a very, very much higher rent district if you want to put it and put them there and I must say in all candor we never had a single complaint that I know of in doing it that way but again I think it underlines Tom what I'm trying to say namely that we want people treated with dignity we see them as made to the image and likeness of God and if they are then we don't say they deserve the best in the sense of live like millionaires but they deserve a very decent environment if we can afford it and frankly we could and did one of the things we've discovered is if we show the people needs of others they're very responsive and if they know that their donations are going almost directly to the people or part of the program they feel much better about that's just one of those psychological things and this again is one of the advantages of a cooperative venture with the state and really when you come right down to it it's politically smart it's economically smart because it brings together two sets of resources and every politician has an opportunity to say we've done great things and they have so once the track record was established we became one agency that was able to open up a number of things almost all of them on cooperative ventures and I think the realization that in our country where we have lots of people with a lot of money they will give it if they see that it's a valid cause and they will give it for those things that they like and one of the things we always have to do I think is challenge them to give and that's been one of the characteristics of our country when Benton House came and made their application the committee was excited because here was a new opportunity for us so I made a field trip out to the house I was not totally unfamiliar with the program and we decided okay we'll give them 9500 plus in grant monies solely for the bathroom renovation and for the carpet even if we can't fund them through the block grant process the housing authority gets the major funding and we refer groups to other agencies if we can't help them we'll refer them on to another agency that can help them so whether or not the funding is there at least they get doors open and they get referrals and recommendations which will open more doors later on a lot of planning was involved a lot of time spent figuring out exactly what was needed and how we were going to be able to accomplish it the fun part was the day that we were there because while it was a full day of work of physical work it was also a day where you could see from start to finish what your hard work accomplished and we saw the finished product we saw the house painted we saw the new flooring sub flooring and the new linoleum put down in the dining room which was one of my jobs to do as the first time I've ever done sub flooring I'll tell you it was like an old barn raiser I guess where we came together and we ate lunch and when we finished one project that we were assigned to we went along and helped with something else and everyone participated everyone had a good time and a sense of accomplishment was really rewarding I was happy to be a part of the Benton House project it was a fun memory in my mind and it really does prove the point that people helping people is what makes this world go around it was good for us it was good for the clients that lived there it was good for the neighbors that saw the improvement it was good for parents to know that we care about their kids and they're not forgotten by a community it was good all the way around and it was fun to sit back stand in the street and look at what we had done through that day and be very very proud of it the Benton House project brought together people with developmental disabilities their parents the staff and political business and church leaders from the community of Santa Rosa California in a common purpose it's the type of project that can be replicated any place in the state of California and I strongly urge you to look for your community leaders who do care it does work


Okay, well, thank you all for being here. This is a wonderful opportunity to share our work with you I'm presenting on behalf of my co-authors on the influence of social media activism and opinion leaders on international environmental law and Both my co-authors have a very strong academic and legal background and I'm coming at this from a slightly different lens So my focus is on the civil society side of things and the campaigning attempts to influence Legal proceedings, so when it comes to the Q&A, please go easy on me for the legal side of it So I'll just go into a little bit more detail about my background and why I'm speaking to you and then go on to the work so There we go So when it comes to the assessment of the role of online activism I was thought or partially at least in each camp in the academic and practitioner divide So in academic terms my study of this came about while completing my MSc in environmental policy And that was with a focus on the efficacy of online petitioning and other forms of digital activism on the formation of environmental law And since then my professional experience has been working at a national international level with organizations like Greenpeace Oxfam and the Syria campaign who work with the Syria civil defense with the White Helmets and Now I'm the campaign's lead at the developer society and we do and Software development and campaign consulting and support with loads of huge organizations like amnesty and McMillan and save the children groups like that and Then for that context and my bonofides. This is me Locked to the Russian Embassy in London rather sort of embarrassingly pretending to a police officer just out of shot That the keys aren't in my underwear at the time So that's why I'm here and I'm moving swiftly on to speak about the actual work So when examining the role of social media activism and opinion leaders In our research we've broken it down into four key technological drivers And these are four significant components and global game changers in the way networking and public policy are done today And key parts of the information revolution But rather than give you and sort of a rush praises of them all I'd like to come to a bit more detail on one area and speak to some of my experience with this and that's social media activism So when it comes to exerting influence in international lawmaking procedure NGOs would be particularly active in their use of social media And now of course digital and social media run through all aspects of the work of contemporary NGOs Sort of the same as the society. You don't have an online and offline life. It's a blended thing now and But still digital work does remain siloed and you'll see that in job descriptions or in department titles There's still like digital functions. And and that's why we're looking at this here and and In order to understand this from the NGO side and perspective I can bring to this And I just want to briefly look at where social media sits within campaigning as conceptualized within NGOs So again, of course, we shouldn't be approaching this in a black box manner and then They're NGOs of all shapes and stripes, but using broad strokes for today's purpose We're looking at I NGOs so the big logos and campaigning world friends of the earth the amnesties 350s groups like this The model varies of course across these different organizations And but it usually roughly conforms to something like this and that's campaigning work as a broad bucket and This is attempt to shape policy at a government or corporate level This breaks down into advocacy and public campaigning so advocacy is the lobbying the behind-the-scenes efforts The research driven side of things and public campaigning is and the work to bring together Pressure from large numbers of people and focus it on specific targets So we're looking at the work that's done within public campaigning and that breaks down further into Digital actions, so you'll be aware of digital actions if you've ever taken an online petition done anything with change org or any groups like this and Further further breakdown of digital actions is the social media actions, and this is a subset. I'm gonna look at so through here and When looking at social media and This is often one of the first things that's reached for in the NGO tactics toolbox There's become the focus of a lot of public and internal attention and within NGOs So there's several key reasons for this and one is the clear metrics that are available at a public and internal level the fact that You measure what matters But what what you measure matters as well? And this is really important for NGOs in terms of their internal monitoring evaluation But also in terms of public perception and you can see numbers of people signed up You can see numbers of shares likes and things like this and this is and this has really I feel a disproportionate influence on Where focus is bought in terms of the work? it's a source of advertising and there's been a lot of grooming of NGOs and big organizations by and Google Facebook and the big drivers of online advertisement and there's been a huge engagement So it has become an area where a lot of budget is put and obviously you follow the money where the budget goes this is where focus goes and Finally, there's the dangerous fact that everyone thinks they know social media So it's really a common case. You'll have a senior manager telling you how to sort of direct your social media strategy and But in truth, it's still a relatively unknown to everyone even the experts in this area And we're only sort of starting to get a sense now of how social media actions will have an influence on Legal proceedings or a corporate policy or anything like that Apologies so in looking at this and the key elements that would be teased out in our research and about how social media influences legislation this is and About how big NGOs operate social media campaigns in this space and how they are a central node for these campaign actions Directing public influence in certain ways Looking at the affordances of the technology available So that means in terms of what new technology can do that couldn't be done previously If you're looking at a letter writing campaign and asking supporters to write their MPs This is a digitization of a previous tactic But if you're looking at some of the social media campaigns that could be done now this is something that couldn't be done in a previous era by civil society and We're looking at funding models and this is I think a really fascinating area and One where NGOs with a need for public donations have really been ahead of the curve in many regards so as with all things online or all things technological if There is no product that you're buying you and your data are the product And that's very much true in the NGO and civil society world and where data collection is a huge aspect of public campaigning for follow-up for any number of reasons whether it's this building and profile building or For their contact from fundraising and I'm sure that's the experience everyone here has had at some point and Okay, and to go into it and our framework and a little bit more detail and Of course sort of fools rush in where those you cite fear-to-thread and as Erling came board of stated here empirically documenting the causal influence of protest on policy is notoriously hard But we've already had some very interesting findings by approaching the interplay between digital campaigns and international lawmaking and from three major theoretical perspectives so with With a night at the time and making sure we're moving through this kind of quickly I'll just give a very quick skim over this first We look at the issue from an economics and that's a cost-benefit analysis perspective and in this way We've gone into topics such as slack to wisdom and the ease of participation for publics Secondly, we've approached the dynamics from a psychological perspective and particularly looking at social cognitive theory and the role of mass communications in behavioral change And thirdly then we turn our attention back to the system of international dispute resolution And this is where I massively rely on my co-authors for their support So to Finally move on and to quickly touch an example that I have first-hand knowledge of and what you're seeing here is still from the Everything is not awesome video produced by Greenpeace International as part of their safety Arctic campaign This is something that I worked on back in 2014, but I can't claim any credit Very minor role in us and but I was a part of it and something I can sort of speak to you from the inside and bring that practitioner and Practitioner insights what we're doing. So the Greenpeace global campaign to save the Arctic started in 2012 And this campaign has been umbrella for a group of actions aimed at protecting the Arctic from overfishing and deep sea mineral and extraction The aim of the campaign is to be established a global sanctuary in the Arctic But in many ways, this is a sort of almost fatigued legal position and More a hook for activism but something that can be understand by the public rather than as like a realistic Legal goal from the end of us and in terms of digital engagement. This has been hugely and hugely popular and hugely successful and by 2016 already a million eight million different people globally had taken online action of some Form of Greenpeace specifically in support of the Save the Arctic campaign And and then when we look at things like the data capture element of that We see how significant that is for the organization globally Since 2013 and world up Shell has been one of the primary targets of online action by Greenpeace And this is both for two clear reasons Shell have been very active in mineral extraction and exploration in the Arctic But are also a really convenient and villain again as a hook and an obvious and organization to engage the public on as most people had some form of conception of Shell and a lot of people have and negative perception of them in general terms from previous campaigns about their drilling and the Niger Delta and a Lot of their work over the years. So and the one I want to speak about now is the particular campaign that was focused on the Lego and Connection with Shell and the brand attack that was done on this which resulted in the Danish toy maker dropping their long-standing marketing association with Shell and for Our legal research I think this is really interesting because the campaign itself was not directly about Stopping Shell's work in the Arctic. It wasn't about putting climbers on rigs or any barriers to that work and the supposedly the from different research the Lost PR value to Shell was going to amount to hundreds of millions of dollars in the coming years But again to an organization the size of Shell. That's really not a huge dent in what they're doing It's not going to stop any of their operations and but in the same way that the save the Arctic campaign is not broadly about establishing Arctic sanctuary and That's been the same with the Lego and Shell campaign and because this was Primarily focused on generating discussion and debate about harmful environmental impacts of Shell's work But also with the aim of reducing their social license So the term for the public acceptance and perception of the practice of the oil industry and a lot of ways with them So some of the more out there work that Greenpeace do there will be a lot of internal discussions about things like the over some window and shifting the public discourse Around what is acceptable in terms of mineral extraction which then has an interesting impact on legal proceedings when it comes to it down the line so and in a way and With this example there's been a huge global public engagement with the legal narrative again Like we've said of those millions of people engaged globally They're all being targeted in emails social media through re-advertising and different means and being fed a legal message no matter how naive or simplistic it is about the role of Shell's work in the Arctic so Finally and very briefly to move on to the last element that we've looked into And that is influencers because of course what the social media be without influencers So in addition to the bonds that form between celebrities and their audiences celebrities influences on legislators and the public may be interpreted by the Tendency of humans to take social cues from high status individuals And this speaks to social proof which is one of the key concepts in online influencing And something that we're all familiar with on a day-to-day basis The sort of little rush you get when you get a like or a notification on social media And how we instinctively compare the numbers of shares and likes across organizations But across our own profiles and our friends that's a social proof Of where people are going and what people are doing has a massive influencing effect on absolutely everyone and So this paper has then that we're working on therefore identifies five renowned public figures in the area of global warming and climate policy brilliant and and Yet, unfortunately the subject of the slide is one of those subjects and that's been joyous for us And and we've been reflecting on the legal aspects of their active social media engagements and and these activities real world in play in impacts on climate negotiations international environment And then environmental law and related trade and investment policies and So of course with the time I've had to speak to you today And being on such great panel we haven't had time to be able to delve too deeply into all of it here But I think and hopefully you'll agree that the role of social media in influencing the form and formation of environmental law In some of the sort of indirect ways that I've touched on as well is really You know fascinating topics for us to work on and it's an emerging practice Both in terms of what practitioners are doing but also in the literature And we're hopefully adding something to that from both the legal and civil society perspectives And so thank you very much for all your time And we'd love to get follow-up from all of you or any of you who are interested on the academic or on the practitioner side of this Thanks very much


Let us look at the 3 stages in aircraft design. These particular stages are actually the same as what we saw in the previous clip regarding the phases in aircraft design. It is just a different way of looking at the same thing. So the first stage of aircraft design is the conceptual design stage which involves only 1% of the total effort involved in aircraft design. In this there are a few activities we do, we look at competing concepts and we evaluate them because we want to ensure that the requirements that drive the design are understood and appreciated. We establish the performance goals to ensure that these requirements are met and to confirm that the design will work. And in the end after a comparative analysis of various competing concepts, we shortlist a preferred concept or concepts one or two concepts for future evaluation and at this point of time we should have a fairly good idea of what our aircraft will look like. The next stage is the preliminary design stage which roughly compasses and compasses sorry the next stage is the primary design stage which roughly encompasses nearly 9% of the total effort and time spent in the design and in this stage we do refined sizing. And this refined sizing requires some optimization, little bit of optimization may be needed also in the previous stage because to arrive at which configuration is the best we do need to have some kind of an objective which has to be optimized. So optimization is used also in the previous stage but here it is at a far larger level and then we examine and verify our preferred concept or concepts using detailed testing in the wind tunnel or structural analysis and we might have to do modifications and amendments in the design that we have taken up essentially to ensure that we are on the right track and the requirements are met and also at this place we need to get the detailed cost estimates of our design. And then we come to the last stage in our design which is the detailed design stage here 90% of the effort is spent in the design process. And in this process what we do is we do detailed drawings and detailed CAD of various parts that go into the aircraft, the various sub-assemblies, the various components, etc. The word component here should not be confused with the word component used earlier for the major assemblies. But and here you look at the details of the flight control system, you go for sizing of various components in detail, you again go for the detailed performance estimation and during this process you do the check on the various systems and components and also remember that in this particular stage only minor changes are permitted and now we start looking at what would be the effort involved in certification activity that we will have to undertake. So summing up one way of looking at the three stages in aircraft design, the names of the same conceptual, preliminary and detailed is this particular perspective and it is very important to sensitize the students that in our classroom course of aircraft design we might be able to do only about 1% which is the conceptual design stage and maybe a small part of the second stage of the preliminary design. It is rarely possible for a classroom environment to deal with detailed design and the activity in the classroom therefore will be limited only to the conceptual design and a very small part of the preliminary design. So thank you for your attention, we will now move on to the next clip, thank you.


The program has been really great. I just feel this energy and excitement from my fellow peers. We're all trying to make change within the legal field. What I'm hoping to gain from this program is just the experience of being able to help persons of color to receive an equitable and fair shape in the legal field. Lexus Nexus is a large organization. We have lots of talent and lots of resources. And if we're not taking those items and building them into something that can help society, can help amplify the voices of these talented fellows, we're not doing it right. For so many years, black lawyers were not at the table. So I think that this program allows us to come and be at the table. This program offers minority students an opportunity not only to invest in a program and in themselves to work on a project, a passion project, but it also is teaching them practical life skills, professional skills. I'm really enjoying the need for research that we're just really getting into. I like to write, I like to research and I'm pretty curious. So that's been fun. And it's also fun meeting other fellows from all over. We're just getting to know people that I probably wouldn't have a chance to connect with otherwise. Having so many mentors here, so many people who are willing to help and put their hands in and really say, hey, I can do this or I can connect you to somebody or I can connect you to somebody who can do that, it's fantastic. The Lexus Nexus team has been so intentional about making us feel special, making us feel like we're in a community that cares about us and our projects. Everything from the keynote speakers to the presentations that we have around the room. I feel really supported and excited about my project just because of the support that I have.