You guys, this will be five times the rows that you've played against them, played against that defense. What are maybe some of the characteristics they have that you see on film from carry over? Yeah, fast, physical, disruptive, it's always tough going against them. Like you said, it'll be 50 or straight going against these guys. So we know each other very well, so it's gonna be a physical game. And then we know it's always gonna be tougher than trenches. That's pretty good performances against them in the past. You relish the challenge of going up against one of the better defenses in the league like that?  They've been good and consistent with the same guys for how long we've been playing them. And it's always good to go against a great defense like them, and it'll be a challenge come Monday. Derek Vaughn Miller had some fun stuff to say. He said, first of all, I can't believe I'm almost as big as this guy is. We're about the same size. He said, I might be able to run faster. His vertical is better, but just up against a guy like that who's been in the league so many years, what a challenge does he always pose? He's a Hall of Fame player. He's disruptive, he can take over a game at any point of the game. So you gotta make sure we take account of him on each and every play, each and every snap. Since the type of player he is, that's how it's been since he's been in the league. And we actually train at the same training facility. So I see him often in the offseason, but there's gonna be a challenge going up against him. A lot of backs put up some big numbers last weekend. You sense the running game is getting a little more fashionable in the NFL again all of a sudden? It's good to have a running game guys making big plays. I didn't, but it's good to see the guys getting yards and making big plays and helping their teams out. And hopefully it keeps going because we don't get much love, but hopefully that stops sometime soon. Will you say you didn't have a good game? What didn't you like about your game? Well, I feel like I could have played better. A lot of plays you want back and you just gotta get over it and work on those things and work to improve during the week and just not let it happen again. Just grow it and let it help you and kill you for the next game. You've always been. As you're in the middle of a game, yourself and the offensive line starting to take control and gain momentum in a game? Or is that just big plays happening? That's what it is. Yeah, anytime you're able to control a lot of scrimmage and keep pushing piles forward and keep gaining yards and having efficiency in the ring game, you all can feel it and you know that everything's working, we're clicking. So yeah, when that happens, it's a great feeling. Coach Redboy said that looking back on the Giants game, there was a lot of meat left on the bone. When you hear that, how do you process that and what's your response to it? What does that mean to you? No, he was right. It was a lot left on the bone, a lot of plays that could have got more out of. I could have got more out of and taking heavy emphasis on that this week. Just so when that time comes to take advantage of those plays when they're there, you got to make those plays because in this league, it can be there, then actually it closes. So just take advantage of those plays and get the most out of the play as well. What do you say that you could have gotten more out of them personally? Yeah. Is there an example or what do you mean by that? Like on the Wildcat play when I just looked the ball in and get vertical. And there's one run I had that I could have stayed vertical and tried to set up a block. But I'll just get up on that safety more quicker and try to make a home run. I know there are ebbs and flows in any game. When you guys go flat like you did at the beginning of the second half. What's your process there? Do you say something to the guys? Just looking to stay the course. Is there any acknowledgement that like, hey, things have changed for us and we need to change it back? Yeah, just as an office, you just got to get something going. And my mind said I got to make something happen. Trying to be a playmaker for this team. That's what I always think anytime we're not going the way we need to. Try to make sure everybody stays in it and then do my part by making a play. Derek, it's only week two, but do you guys as a team go into this week saying our backs are against the wall, we can't go into anything like that? We're not getting too overwhelmed about week one. All we can do is control, we control and come out here until Monday comes and get better as the week goes on and go out there and try to win a game on Monday. This week one, in this game you get no opportunity and that's all you can go for. You've always been a real self-critical guy, Derek. Do you think coming back for the first game this season, any chance that maybe you'll kind of let expectations get to yourself at home? Maybe you were a little bit more impatient than you usually are? Yeah, I'm my worst critic, if anything. So yeah, I always felt like I could have been better and just let the game come to me instead of just trying to get too overwhelmed, trying to make that big play. Each and every play and just go out there and play and do what I do. So when it comes to Monday's spotlight on you guys, anything different in the air than all the other Sunday games? I'm just ready to play. I mean it's been a long week, week's still going on so, and the game's at night. So I'm just ready to play and be excited when the time comes. What do you think this big corn might add to the middle of their line there?  So it'll be fun to go against him, I haven't gone against him since he's been away so.  How do you balance or try to balance the safe four to five yards you might get with Derrick on first down versus taking a shot? Yeah, we do a good job within the course of the game trying to keep track of where we're at from a percentage standpoint, a run pass ratio standpoint. Also, you go into a game like that with a team that has a history of exotic pressures on third down and so on. And so you kind of have an intentionality of trying to stay in third and manageable. That way you're not putting yourself back there waiting for long routes to develop on third down. And so I think it would be a game by game situation. Certainly in that game, early in the game, we were running the ball four or five yards a pop on first down. It kind of helped us stay into a rhythm, stay in some of those third and shorters. Obviously, we didn't do a good enough job of converting the third and shorts, but that all plays into the process. And then it also set up some play passes on first down later in the game that we had some success. Is third and manageable straight out the goal or is there an allowance for first down on first down or second down? Absolutely. I mean, third manageable is the preference if you're not taking those shots on first and second down. And so there's a give and take there. Ultimately, the goal is to get first downs, whether it's on first, second, or third down to continue drives. But you go into a game like that and you certainly want to try to limit the exposure on third next along. I've talked about running the play to the shape that you guys have on third down. Been a lot of talk about that. What needed to happen better for that play to succeed? A better play call. That was a bad call. I take full responsibility for that call.  Obviously, had a little miscue earlier in the game on short yardage and got a little too aggressive with that call. Should have got something downhill and that's on me. Coach Rayboy has said something to the extent of you guys don't take the philosophy, excuse me, philosophy of, we have to get this guy going. But when you have playmakers like Burks, like Woods, don't you think that's something that you want to do? Hey, let me get them a while, get them checked in early. So that way we have them full go for the game. Yeah, we do a quite extensive kind of evaluation of the game plan as a staff to make sure that we have some things for you guys, particularly early in the game. And I think you saw some different guys getting touches early in the game. One of the things that I think we did well is we started faster. That was a point of emphasis. And we were able to get a touchdown on the opening drive by getting the ball to a couple of different guys, including Traylin and some other people. So there's certainly an element of that to try to get guys going. You want to balance that without trying to force anything. And that's always part of the ebb and flow of the game. But yeah, I think there's some validity to trying to get guys going early. Todd, generally speaking, when you guys have an offensive philosophy that everyone knows and that won't change kind of regardless of the personnel you guys have on the field, what do you have to do kind of on a week to week basis to make sure that you're keeping the defense on its toes? Yeah, we got to look for those counter punches, you know? And that's something that helped us generate some of those play pass productions. We had a couple of explosives in the play pass off of common run formations, things like that. And then also you have to have some interchangeable parts. You have to have guys that can go in there and do the job of maybe somebody who gets most of those reps early in the season. And you got to kind of do it out of a different personnel grouping. So, you know, first game, you develop a couple of tendencies, and then you got to try to find those counter punches to those tendencies. Super O-Line as far as the protection standpoint and weak point. And maybe what's the challenge here in week two against the team ahead? Seven sides. Well, thank you for asking, Jim. I thought we protected well. I thought we did a nice job of setting a firm pocket for Ryan inside. He was able to step up in the pocket and get through a couple of progressions. You know, we ended up with the one statistical sack that was on a keeper that Ryan scrambled. But, you know, that was the only blemish on otherwise. Pretty good protection day. Yeah, however, were you by Ryan Tannehill in that season opener? Yeah, I thought he saw the game well. You know, we were talking on the sideline and he was diagnosed in defense as well. And particularly for a defensive scheme like that and the unknowns of the opener, you know, he was seeing things and indicators well. And so that process was good. Again, we just need to convert more on third down so we can keep those drives alive and give more opportunities for those first down play passes or, you know, the counter punches that we talked about. And that's, you know, that's obviously the goal this week. How much bigger is the challenge from a protected standpoint against Buffalo based on what you saw for them last week? Yeah, that's the fun of the NFL, right? Every week's a different challenge. Last week is a little bit more scheme and figuring out how you're going to block things up. And this week it's about matchups and knowing our opponent. So we've got to dive into understanding who we're blocking, right? And having, you know, a protection plan for some of those edge rushers and then, you know, make sure we're doing everything we can to help those guys in one-on-one situations. We talked about getting guys going at all. Woods and Westbrook each caught a ball early and then kind of disappeared from the pass game. And then Hooper was targeted really late in the game. What do you have to do to kind of spread things around or you're just trying to play the hot hand and whoever's open there? Yeah, you know, I think that there's a little bit of misnomer to the number of targets just because they weren't targeted early. Doesn't mean they weren't first in the progression early. And so there are a couple of plays where we might have those guys highlighted at different points in the game. And then a couple of those penalties, you know, on who he was the primary target in the two-minute drive, you know, with those holding calls where if he wasn't held, he probably gets a target. So, you know, there's a little bit of that to it as well. But I do think there's a balance between trying to get everybody going and spreading it out and, you know, sticking with what's working, so to speak, you know, and obviously we got Don Trell going a little bit in the red zone and situationally, which may have taken away a couple of targets from those other guys. Getting the defensive holdings and that sort of. Is there a knack or a trick for guys to be able to get more of those calls, whether it's a defensive hold or a pass interference call? Do some guys have that ability to do that more than others? I think so, yeah, it's just contact, you know, strength through contact and play speed. You know, hoop does a great job of setting up defenders and getting on an edge. And sometimes when they hook them or grab them, you know, he's able to show that he's being restricted and that kind of movement, you know, lets the official know that there's been some grab in there. So I do think there's some savviness to that and some football IQ of understanding, hey, I got a guy on a certain leverage. Let's take advantage of it and put him in a tough spot. On the predictability front, last year, second down, if you got sacked or threw incomplete on first down, you ran 64% of the time. Is that a we're going to run no matter what and we're going to make you stop us thing or is that a stubbornness where you're not using everything that's available to you? Yeah, maybe a little bit of both. You know, certainly trying to get ourselves, you know, into a little bit better third down situation on those second and longs. And I have a lot of confidence in our run game to be able to be efficient in those situations. You know, I wouldn't necessarily categorize 64, 36 as like, you know, stubbornness and just flat out tilting the scales. It's leaning one way, but you're a couple runs, couple passes here and there from balancing that out. So, you know, hopefully I'm not too predictable this season. Couple runs from balancing a couple passes from balancing it out, but you choose not to take those couple passes. Yeah, and again, that can be all game situation, you know, and a lot of factors play into that. You did a good job, like getting him matched up against linebackers, as a play caller and schemer, how do you balance, okay, I have a guy who I just know is going to beat the opposition as opposed to, okay, I got to scheme these guys to get open from week to week. Yeah, sometimes it's two in the same, right?  And then sometimes it's about familiarity and given the quarterback of progression that he's seen a lot of times and then just moving some of the pieces around to build those schemes. So, you know, I think that Don Trell adds a piece there for us that has been fun to watch, you know, throughout training camp, kind of grow in that role. You know, we're always stressing our guys, you know, to run off the football and to be the tip of the spear in the run game from a tight end standpoint. And, you know, I think that that's an ever-growing kind of challenge for those guys, right? Is how much can they give to the pass game and can they equal it in the run game? So we don't want anybody to be one-dimensional and we'll continue to challenge everyone to step up, you know, in both phases. Great. With the yards you guys gave up in the run game last week, are those correctable things when you watched them unfilm? Yeah, I think so. I mean, it was a combination, man. I think a couple of tough calls, put the guys in some tough situations on a couple of those things. I think the tackling showed up a little bit. You face an elite back. I mean, you're going to have some, but they were able to break some and get some significant yardage on them. And then a few fit things where an elite back finds it, right, like if you don't fit up against the ones that are elite, they make you pay for it. So in combination of things, it's got to be better. We got to do a better job setting the edge, building a wall and swarming. But I mean, there was a few different things that factored into that. Was Zach aggressive enough in this game? Yeah, I felt like he was going. There were some good clips of him knocking guys around and they were doing some unique things, bringing the tight end up on them pretty early in the down, in the play. And again, with all these guys, they got a decision to make. At some point in the block, it's either I can go under, I can go over, I can go through. And a lot of that depends on where the ball's at, right? So, I mean, there's a time and place for making those decisions and they got to have good instincts and good feel for when they can. But we will see. I think all of us across the board knows it has to be better. Challenge, I guess, going up to the quarterback like Buffalo's got with a strong arm and also a willingness to run it. Yeah, he's a special player. We got a big challenge ahead of us. He makes that thing go up there. He can make the throws on schedule, all the throws, wherever it is. He can scramble around and buy time and make all the throws. He can scramble around and run and stiff arm 250 pound dudes to the ground. He's a unique player with a special skill set with a lot of things that you have to be able to defend with him. The tackling problems have kind of been well documented with starters playing little to none in the preseason and obviously not taking guys to the ground in practice at all. Is some of that rust? And do you have to maybe rethink your approach to the preseason in terms of getting guys on the field to tackle? I think, I mean, we try to rep it. A lot of the fundamentals of tackling, I think you can get across without contact. Like we're out here throughout the season, it's the same thing. Like, I mean, you talk about tackling and there might be maybe five to six tackles per guy, per game on average, you would say. But I think that the technique and the fundamentals of being able to stay on my feet and not get too wide with my base where I can step to contact. I'm not hop in and I'm closing the distance. All those things that really enable you to be a good tackler have nothing to do with the end result of the contact if that makes sense. Like there's a lot of little things leading up to the junction point where I'm wrapping and collision and that ultimately lead to whether you make or miss. So, I mean, does it factor maybe a little bit? I'm not gonna say yes or no either way, but I do think there's a lot of things we can do without the contact that can improve our tackle. With Farley only playing 15 snaps against the Giants, like how has he responded? Obviously he wants to play more, but how has he responded to that? Yeah, he's been good. He's competitive. All these guys are. They all want to be out there every snap. Unless they're tired, of course, and they're begging to get out. But he's responded well. I think he's been ready to go this week. He's excited for the challenge that they present and what's gonna be asked of him. So, I mean, he's been good. I've felt no negativeness from him this week. What's kind of your talking point with Christian on the big touchdown play there? And I guess how important is that, especially with guys like Diggs? Yeah, I mean, on the back end, ultimately do your job, right? And that's all 11 guys, they got a job to do. On a run play, on a pass play, they all have a job to do. It's our job on those plays to rush and be able to get home to affect the quarterback. And you're not always going to.  They can't get lazy. They can't fall asleep on things. And if you've got a job to cover the man, worry about covering the man and not what's going on with the other 10 guys, because that's your job on that play. Just kind of maybe got caught looking in the back. Yeah, I got caught peeking. I think he got a little lazy with his technique. And then I started to wonder. Officer, then, did you like with the Roger McCurry's game? Yeah, I thought he did a good job. I thought he, I thought he did a really good job for the first game going out there and competing and different things that he's been doing for us.  So I'm encouraged with him. And hopefully it keeps progressing. Shane, everybody talks about, obviously, Allen and his receivers. What do you see from their running backs on film? How good are they? Yeah, they're all different, right? They're all different. Singletary Moss, I think they both run the ball really hard. I think they've done a good job of introducing some different schemes to kind of help those guys a little bit, a little bit different schematically than what they were last year in the run game. But they do, they run the ball hard. They're fighting for yards. No different than the quarterback fighting for yards. Again, it's going to be a game where we're going to have to be able to set the edge on them. And hopefully we can build a wall where they can't get that steam going downhill on us. What did you guys lose in David and A&E from the practice squad? And maybe also, have you got any impressions on Tusca so far? Yeah, I think David did a great job for us in the preseason. The rushability, he was progressing. He was improving every day. I think we saw that from training camp on through. And Tusca's been good. He's been bought in. He's learning as we go. Just like all these guys, they're trying to carve out a role for himself. And he's done a good job of everything. We've asked them up to this point. What is the challenge when they use, I think, three different backs on Thursday night? I mean, I guess to Josh, you kind of knew you see a lot of bark. It was a challenge when you got so many guys rotating in. Yeah, I think you got to know their skill sets. They're all a little bit different. Singletary to Moss, to Cook, right? They're all different in how potentially they could use them because of those skill sets. And just like anything else, we talked a little bit about the DB receiver deal. Like, knowing who you're lined up against and what they're trying to do and how they run their routes, it's no different with running backs, right? How patient are they? How impatient are they? How hard are they hitting it? Like, there's all these, are they more quick than fast? There's a bunch of different skill sets that come into play, can they catch out the backfield? All those things, we've got to have a good understanding of who each guy is.  Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say that. I think the X plays killed us, and it led them back in the game. That's the thing. Like, if we don't give them the X plays, we've got to make them earn it and who knows what happens. But when you get those X plays and they're right back in the game and the momentum starts to swing, it just gets hard. And I think those two plays kind of demoralized us a little bit more so than us truly just letting our foot off the gas. But again, we battled. Like, after those two plays, we battled. We found some stops. And then, unfortunately, we weren't able to get it done on that last drive there. Yeah, I think he was in a good position. They tried to run some spot pick deal and rub them, and he was able to play over the top of it. He was in a good spot to where he was able to get his eyes back. If we talk about a man coverage a lot, we're not really looking for interceptions. We're looking for PBU's and playing through the hands and making sure our eyes are on our man, right? So we're not losing them. But he was in a good spot. I think he was able to get over the top. And he was kind of in phase with Seyquan, and he was able to take a peek. And then that's when he saw the ball and was able to make it. Yep. You bet some adjustments that Randy had made coming into this year. Did you see anything on the one kick that stood out, or is it just kind of, you know? Yeah, you know, we went over it with Randy. I think he just swung through it a little bit too much. We're trying to tell him to be aggressive when he goes and kicks the ball. And it's just unfortunate, one of those things that we didn't come up and make the kick. But beforehand, we just have a lot of confidence in Randy, whether it's anywhere out on the field right now. He's had a great training camp. And you know, just he's been doing really well. And so we're going to have a lot of confidence in him to make all these kicks. So when the next time this happens, we expect the ball to go through. There's a big emphasis at the end of the game there to make sure he got on the right hash using the timeout and all of that stuff. Is that preferable to being right down the middle? So yeah, Randy doesn't care where he kicks the ball. He likes to have it on one of the hashes. And going through our data just over training camp and things like that, the right hash has been more of a better kick for him. So we felt also with the wind going from a right to left, going that direction of the tunnel, that that hash would be the best thing for him. So yeah, we're going to look at all the data and see where the winds at each and every week. And it might change from game to game. But we just felt the right hash was going to be a better spot for him on that kick. Does the data say a closer field goal? Sure. Is it a higher percentage than a hash mark? Definitely.  But with the time and things like that, the biggest thing is, hey, we want to feel a certain hash might be the best kick for Randy, too. But I think if you ask all kickers, too, they'll probably say more yardage. But when it comes down to us making a 40 yard field goal from a 42 to a 47, well, we got to be able to go and execute everything from our operations to our kick. With that data and knowing that the right hash is where you want to be, is that not something that you would think would be understood when that drive starts? Because apparently there was a timeout that had to be called. Yeah, and I got to continue to do a good job communicating that because it could change at any point in time, right? Whether it's the wind, whether we're at on a certain spot on the field, I got to continue to communicate everything with Todd, with the head coach. Because again, that part can change at any point in time during the course of the game. Talking about swinging through, is that more of a technique issue, where his left foot maybe is out of place, or what maybe contributes? No, it would be more of him just trusting his follow through with his kick. That's probably one of the bigger things with Randy is really getting his hip through. Whether he kicks the ball in the right or the left hash, we want to make sure that he's staying aggressive on all of his kicks. Have it still not done as a holder? I mean, we always heard how good Brett was in that regard. Has that been an adjustment for him at all? A little bit. Obviously, when you're working with a guy all last year with Brett that Randy did last year, it's always an adjustment going in. But Ryan has done a great job for us coming in here, working his butt off as far as holds, because that was a major thing with him. He didn't really hold that much, especially his last couple of years there at Colorado State. But he's worked at it. He's out here every single day on the jugs, working with Randy. So we'll continue to work with him to get our operation as perfect as we possibly can, because Morgan snaps a great ball for us. The snap at the hole, good on that basket? Yeah, I'm sure there's some things that we can always do better. But we thought the operation was pretty clean. And again, we're going to have a ton of confidence in Randy making that kick next time. Craig, what are the teaching points for Kyle Phillips in the punt return game, where he has an electrifying punt to punt return to start the game, but then also has that muffed punt there at the end of the game? Yeah, sure. I think the one thing that we try to really talk to Kyle about is communication back there. And you probably don't realize it, but there's a lot of communication that happens back there with Kyle and all returners. We want to do a really good job, especially when a punter punts the ball and gets a lot of hangtime, especially if we're backed up a little bit, where our guys, what we tell Kyle all the time is they're fighting for you. They want to have a great return. They're going to block as hard as they possibly can for you. Now we've got to do our turn of communicating. And if it's going to be a job where we have to fair catch it, we've got to get those other guys out of the way so we can clean up the pitcher for him. We don't want to have four or five guys that are going to be right beside Kyle Phillips when he catches a punt. So he's got to do his job communicating and talk really loud because those guys are doing everything that they can to have another big return. So we'll continue to heart with Kyle about that and not just saying it one time, but it's got to be three or four times to get those guys out of the way. What does it mean to you to get Joe Jones and Trent and Cannon on the active roster this week and not have to worry about those decisions going on? Yeah. One, I think they've earned that opportunity to be on the active squad. We both feel like they had really good games for us. And they've worked really hard. And I'm excited for them. I know the players are too. So we'll look each and every week for those guys to make a big contribution to our special teams. Kyle's healthy enough to play Monday. If not, maybe who are you looking at to be your son? So we got a lot of guys back there that's been catching Imani Hooker, Robert Woods, Traylon Burks. Those guys have been doing it during training camp. They'll continue to get reps at it just in case something happens to Kyle. Has a strong leg, a 50 plus yard punt is nothing for him, it seems like. But with that, are you still OK with a 12 to 15 yard return if it's a 40 net? Sure. He had a lot of big punts for us. And we also have to do our job of covering. So we just got to make sure if he's going to hit those deep balls going 66, 70 yards, that there's got to be some hang time with it. I know one of the last ones that he ended up punting, he wants that one back because it wasn't really great direction, but it was still 58 yards. We just got to get a little bit more hang time on it. So any time he's going to boom the ball like that, we've got to make sure that we get good hang time and then our coverage has to be good. And if they do get 12, 15, 16 yards and we can still net 47 yards, I still think we're doing a pretty good job.


Pathika Group continues to grow horizontally and physically. We expanded our footprint across various markets, across various geographies in various multimedia businesses. We have consolidated our position in print. In radio, we now have a strong 18-station network under the brand name FM Pharka. In digital, we've grown exponentially. Our latest venture is our television network. It's known as Pathika TV. It's truly based on an integrated press room concept using the latest technology, which is Mojoo, mobile journalism. What makes us number one is our aid goal in penance, which we'll continue to work with a lot of pride and passion. Thank you.


Crack. An old board game collection video showed up from you on my home page last night. Nice. Great to see you see some Avalon Hill Wargames highlighted. Hello, by the way. Hello Crack, how are we doing? Yeah, an Avalon Hill gang. One of the old school Avalon Hill. One of the greatest board game companies in history. One day, one day. Crack, you'll appreciate this. One day, one day. I hope to have a space where I have every single old school Avalon Hill game ever put out. I'm not sure how much they're going for. I know some of them might be worth a fair bit. I have an almost mint copy of Dune that I got it brand new. I bought it online in mid 1990s from someone in Florida. I sent them 50 bucks in a chat room. I said, oh, I'm looking for a Dune game. They said, oh, I have one brand. It's closed seal and stuff like this. I bought it for 50 bucks. It sent it to me from Florida. It was brand new when I got it. I shouldn't have done this, but I cracked it open and popped out some of the things. So it's never been played on. It's almost brand new. One day, I hope to have all of them like that. I don't know if there's any around from the old school ones from the 19. When did Avalon Hill come about? There's 1940s, 50s. 50s were already around. So


New study finds the rest of the world supports China and Russia. The US is preparing to station multiple nuclear-capable B-52 bombers in Northern Australia in what the mass media are calling a signal to China, yet another example of Australia's forced subservience as a US military intelligence asset. Having bombers that could range and potentially attack mainland China could be very important in sending a signal to China that any of its actions over Taiwan could also expand further. Becca Wasser from the Center for New American Security Think Tank told the ABC. This is a dangerous escalation, tweeted Green's Senator David Shubridge of the incendiary provocation. It makes Australia an even bigger part of the global nuclear weapons threat to humanity's very existence, and by rising military tensions it further destabilizes our region. A new Australian financial review article titled Australia's Alliances in Asia are a tale of two regions candidly discusses the Biden administration's recent sanctions geared toward knee-capping the Chinese tech industry and what the author James Koran correctly says is unambiguously a new cold war. Koran describes the impossible task Australia has of straddling the ever-widening divide between its number one trading partner China and its number one security partner the US, while Washington continually pressures Canberra and ASEAN countries toward greater and greater enmity with Beijing. ASEAN countries as much as Australia have much at stake in resisting the onset of a bifurcated world, Koran writes. But that bifurcation is being shoved through at breakneck pace using both hard and soft power measures. Australians have been hammered with increasingly aggressive anti-China propaganda and as a result nearly half of them now say they would be willing to go to war to defend Taiwan from an attack by the mainland with a third saying they'd support a war against China over the Solomon Islands. A recent Cambridge study found that this hostility toward China has been on the rise in recent years not just in Australia but throughout the liberal democracies of the US centralized power alliance. But what's interesting is that public opinion is exactly reversed in the much larger remainder of the Earth's population with people outside the US power cluster just as fond of China as those within that power cluster are hostile toward it. This relationship is largely mirrored with Russia as well. Among the 1.2 billion people who inhabit the world's liberal democracies, three quarters, 75% now hold a negative view of China and 87% a negative view of Russia, the report reads. However, for the 6.3 billion people who live in the rest of the world, the picture is reversed. In these societies, 70% feel positively toward China and 66% positively towards Russia. The report finds that in the developing world, approval of China is higher than approval of the US, quote. For the first time ever, slightly more people in developing countries, 62%, are favorable towards China than towards the United States, 61%. This is especially so among the 4.6 billion people living in countries supported by the Belt and Road Initiative, among whom almost two-thirds hold a positive view of China compared to just a quarter, 27% in non-participating countries. The report finds that while Russia's approval has plummeted in the West, it maintains broad support in the East despite the invasion of Ukraine, quote. However, the real terrain of Russia's international influence lies outside the West. 75% of respondents in South Asia, 60% in Francophone Africa, 62% in Southeast Asia continue to view the country positively in spite the events of this year. I first became aware of the Cambridge study via a Twitter thread by Arnaud Bertrand, who is a great follow if you happen to use that demonic app. Bertrand highlights data on the study showing that US-aligned nations' opinion of China began plummeting not after the COVID outbreak in late 2019, but after 2017 when the US began ramping up its propaganda campaign against Beijing. Apart from the fact that the USA's immensely sophisticated propaganda machine naturally focuses primarily on where the world's wealth and military firepower rests while pushing its global agendas, and apart from the fact that those in Belt and Road initiative countries apparently believe they benefit from their economic relationships with China, the disparity between the developed and developing worlds and their perceptions of the US and its enemies may also be partly explained by another thought-provoking Arnaud Bertrand thread, which I will quote in its entirety here, quote. A puzzling observation in today's world is that almost no Western leader has laid out a positive vision for the future. Take Biden, for instance. His big vision is democracies versus autocracies, meaning his vision for the future of the world is conflict. How positive is that? Contrast this with China, between national rejuvenation and common prosperity at home and the Global Security Initiative as their vision for improved international relations, everyone is very clear on the journey they're embarking on. This is a key, if not the key reason why the West has no chance in hell of convincing the rest to join them. There's simply nothing to join, except conflict, I guess, but you join a conflict to fight for a vision, for a better world. The conflict itself cannot be the vision. This reminds me of what George Kennan, the architect of the Cold War, wrote. To win, he said that America had to create among the peoples of the world generally the impression of a country which knows what it wants, which is coping successfully with the problems of its internal life and with the responsibilities of a world power, and which has a spiritual vitality capable of holding its own among the major ideological currents of the time. Does America give this impression today? Even in my own country, France, ask any French person what Macron's vision for the future of France and the world is, what the grand plan is, and you'll get very puzzled looks. Reform the pension system so we have to work longer? The truth is there's nothing, nada, rien. What we have essentially in the West are political operators. They think their jobs are to get re-elected and to attempt to move whatever metrics the electorate cares about, GDP, unemployment, debt levels, CO2 emissions, etc. Actual leaders have gone extinct or gone east. It's actually quite sad, really speaks to the levels of intellectual decrepitude in the West today. The time of the Enlightenment, the big revolutions, is well and truly gone. We're stuck with our mediocre operators. It's also why this is such a dangerous time. A positive vision brings confidence. It brings hope. It motivates. It makes people look forward to what's to come. The West has none of that today. The future is scary. The dominant feelings are fear and anger. And when there's a lot of fear and anger, these feelings need to be directed somewhere. And our operators certainly don't want it to be them. So it's China, Iran, all those foreigners who hate our freedom. Perfect recipe for a bad conflict. Please, don't get fooled. End quote. Bertrand's Musings echo a recent quote by Professor Jeffrey Socks at the Athens Democracy Forum. The single biggest mistake of President Biden was to say, the greatest struggle of the world is between democracies and autocracies. The real struggle of the world is to live together and overcome our common crises of environment and inequality. Indeed, we could be striving toward a positive vision for the future, one which seeks common prosperity and improved international relations, one which works to remedy inequality and address the looming environmental crisis. Instead, the world is being bifurcated, split in two, which history tells us is probably an indication that something extremely terrible is on the horizon for our species unless we drastically change course. It's worth keeping all this in mind as nuclear-capable bombers are deployed to Australia, as NATO weighs moving nuclear weapons to Russia's border in Finland. As the Biden administration goes all in on economic warfare with China regardless of the consequences, as Russia accuses the US of lowering the nuclear threshold by modernizing the arsenal in Europe into battlefield weapons. As the Council on Foreign Relations President openly admits that the US is now working to halt China's rise on the world stage, as China declares its willingness to deepen ties with Russia on all levels. We could have such a wonderful, healthy, collaborative world, and it's being flushed down the toilet because an empire is using its leverage over the wealthiest populations on our planet to work toward dominating all the other populations.


Hi everybody, I'm Brittany from AJ & Smart. In this video, I'm going to walk you through exactly how we guarantee design sprint success every single time. Let's do it. In this video today, I'm going to share with you guys the secret of how we guarantee that every design sprint we run with our clients is a successful one. This video is going to be really, really helpful if you are currently running design sprints, if you're interested in selling the design sprint, if you actually want to introduce design sprints into your organization, or if you're just curious what the heck it is that here at AJ & Smart we do all day. The design sprint is a week-long process where you go from a broad challenge or idea to a user-tested prototype. It's basically a way to either validate or invalidate an idea very, very quickly. If you want a little bit more information and background on the design sprint, you can definitely click this card above and that'll give you a lot more detail into how that looks. So if any questions come up throughout the video, we'd really love if you put them in the comments. We answer every single question, so throw them down there and we'll definitely respond. At AJ & Smart, we've run over a hundred design sprints with some of the biggest companies in the world. So we've run so many design sprints that we've really learned what it actually takes to ensure that you're having a successful outcome from your sprint. Now before I actually dive into what that actually looks like, I'd like to preface a couple of things. So first of all, what do I mean when I say successful? What is a successful design sprint? In reality, the whole purpose of the design sprint is actually just to invalidate or validate an idea within a short period of time. So you don't actually put something into full production mode, waste a lot of time, a lot of resources into something that actually might not even work. In sort of a very broad sense, a successful design sprint is when you actually do either of those things. You either validate or invalidate. However, I will say that it's kind of a tough sell, whether it be to an external client or an internal team, if the potential outcome of the design sprint is that you've invalidated the idea. That's really difficult to get people on board and get the buy-in to run design sprints. So another thing is we have been running a lot of design sprints before we actually shifted the way that we package them to what we're doing today. And what we found was we'd be running these design sprint weeks, right? And we go through the whole week, we build our prototype, we would test the actual prototype with users, we get all of this data and feedback and feel kind of like we wanted to do more. We wanted to iterate on the idea really quickly while everything was really fresh in order to actually get a little bit closer to what the user would actually want from this product or service. So what we decided to do is introduce an iteration sprint that would be done right after the first sprint week. So we would take what we learned from the first week, we would iterate on it and we would get even closer to a product that's ready to throw into development. So not only that, but we also introduced a kickoff research week as well as a delivery week. So at this point in time, we are selling the design spread in a four week package here at AJ & Smart. Okay, so in this section of the video, I'm now going to go on a little bit more of a deep dive on actually what happens during every week of our four week design sprint package. So we have week zero, we call this the pre-flight. This is a week of research. This is when we're actually looking into the industry that we're working in. We're actually going to look and align on what their business goals are. We have calls with the client as well. We're figuring out what their target demographic is, who are we going to be testing with. And at this point in time, we're actually already starting to figure out who our user testers are going to be and we're kind of coming up with the tactics on how we're going to recruit them. So it's a really important week. We didn't ever do this before. You know, we were running design sprints for a really long time before we introduced the week zero and this really like changed a lot for us. We felt much more prepared going into the week one. We felt like we were aligned really well with our client before we actually started the design sprint. And it was just a really nice way to make sure that we knew what was going on in that specific industry, right? We could check out the news around what's happening, what are the new innovations in that space. And it just really helps you kind of have a better hold on what you're going to be working on. Then we actually move into week one, which we call week one, is the actual first design sprint. And this is the design sprint 2.0, of course. The design sprint is this week long process where you come together, we align on the challenge. We start to ideate and come up with solutions. We actually make a decision. We prototype that thing in one day and then we actually test it in the following day with five users. So at the end of that week one, we also have a day where we're really synthesizing the data. So that's the Friday where we're taking everything from the test and figuring out what it is that we learned. What worked? What didn't work? What will we like to move towards? Where should we iterate to? Then we move into week two, which is actually the iteration sprint. So to clarify, this is actually the third week of the design sprint package, but we call it week two because it is the second sprint. Just for fun, just to confuse people. So the iteration sprint you can think of as being very similar to the design sprint, but almost a little bit more condensed and with much more of a focus on the prototype. So we're actually coming back together as a team in terms of the client. They don't actually need to be in the room for the iteration sprint, which is a really nice bonus for them. So they can actually just come in on a call in the morning where we kind of revise everything that happened in the week before. We align on what the new sprint questions will be and then we move forward just with our team on our own. In this iteration sprint, I'm not going to go into too much detail in this video, but what we do is we do an ideation session again. So we'll do like another round of lightning demos and then we'll sketch again. So everybody will do a new sketch on the team and then we actually build on to the prototype. We do like the voting rounds and everything make more decisions and we add features to the already formed prototype. So your prototype is becoming more robust and then of course we retest with five users. Sometimes we'll use some users that we used in the first week, but it is nice to have a balance. So you have a few users that also tested in the first week, but then you'll bring in some new eyes as well, some new information. It's really important to keep that balance. So then we're moving into week three, which is the project delivery week. This is a very important week, obviously. We're taking everything we've learned. We're taking all the data from the user test and we're synthesizing it for the client. So this includes obviously providing them with an executive summary. We are also showing them a nice highlight reel from the user test. So they have those nice raw insights from their user tests with their prototype. We're obviously delivering both prototypes and of course the design files to the client. Now important to note obviously is that at the end of these four weeks the client is not leaving us with a fully formed, ready to go to market product. They actually have the core of the product so they know what the actual product is. They know what the USP is going to be and they also have some very clear ideas of the key features that they should actually include in the product. So they can go back actually with a really nice roadmap to deliver to their development team and they can say here's what you're going to start working on now. The other thing about our delivery week that our clients really really like is we actually take the features and put them on an effort impact scale. So we actually make a very clear prioritized list of the things that their development team should work on and in what order. That is really really valuable for them so that they can keep the momentum going after the sprint. So once we actually made the shift from offering just a single design sprint to actually adding on a research week and an iteration week and a delivery week. We found that our clients could take what we were working on, bring it back to their team, keep the momentum going and they would have a really nice clear prioritized roadmap of how to move the product forward. Ultimately they were able to launch products faster and really keep the momentum going on their team. Okay thank you so much for watching this video today. I hope that it gave you some insight into how here at AJ & Smart we guarantee design sprint success. If you have any comments on how you're running design sprints, maybe some little tips or tricks that you've found that work really well definitely put them in the comments below or if you have any questions for us on this actual package that we're selling or anything actually surrounding design sprints you can ask those in the comments as well. So if you want to see more from us please subscribe to our YouTube channel. We're putting out videos every single week on design sprints, innovation, product design, everything. Also we have a really nice little Instagram profile where you can follow along daily with what we're up to, how we're working. That's a really nice community to join as well. We also have a podcast that is actually with Jonathan Courtney our CEO and Jake Knapp the inventor of the design sprint. That's a really nice insightful podcast comes out every Monday. We also have a really active and fantastic Facebook group called Innovation Hackers and this is a community that has just grown to be way bigger than we ever thought it would be and it's people sharing tips and tricks on innovation, how they're making things happen, processes, it's all very very valuable stuff. So definitely join that group as well. We'll put all the links down below for you. Thank you so much for watching. Please like the video if you found it useful, helpful, insightful and we'll see you next time. Thanks so much guys. Did I miss something? Just click on the video above me. Where is it going to be? Somewhere around here. Let me start. Okay. Sorry. However, it's... However, I... Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready, Callan. However, obviously...