Hello and welcome to the session. This is Professor Farhad and this session will look at IFRS 16 that deals with leases. This topic is covered an international accounting course, the CPA exam, as well as the ACCA exam. As always, I would like to remind you, my viewers, to connect with me on LinkedIn. Life is too short. Let's get to know each other. YouTube is where you would need to subscribe. I have 1500 plus accounting, auditing and tax lecture. Please like my videos. Just click on the like button. It helps tremendously. Share them. Put them in playlists. Let the world know about them. If you're benefiting, if you're listening to me, it means other people might benefit as well. So share the wealth. This is my Instagram account. Please follow me on Instagram as I'm trying to grow my following to reach more people. This is my Facebook and this is my website. On my website, you will find a link you can have to contribute. If you'd like to support, donate to the channel. Also on my website, I often have offers right now. CPA is offering $1000 off of the Becker Bundle CPA. It's unlimited. It's unlimited access. In other words, you can have the course as long as you need to. Although you may not be studying for the exam now, you can take advantage of their 10,000 multiple choice, hundreds of hours of lectures, exercises and CPA simulations. Now you don't have to buy the whole thing. You can buy parts of the exam. Also, if you decided to buy, Becker does offer free financing so you can make payments. If you're considering the CPA exam, this is the best course you can have. Let's talk about leases. So we're going to talk a little bit about operating leases just as a background discussion, which is operating leases technically don't exist anymore. But I want to talk about the operating leases as an introduction to our discussion. But before we proceed, you're not going to like this as always. I have a link in the description below. And leases is covered in my intermediate accounting chapter 21. So if you go into my intermediate accounting chapter 21 and I have more than 10 lectures, 10 plus lectures that cover leases, this topic. So I'm going to be maybe spending 30, 25 to 30 minutes in this lecture. That's not enough. This is not an intermediate accounting course. This is an international accounting course. The assumption here is you know what leases are and we are building on that knowledge to illustrate the difference between US GAAP and IFRS. Okay, just want to let you know that's the case. So what is a lease? Let's talk about a lease first. A lease is a contract. Basically, it's a lease agreement. It's a contract that conveys to LSC the right to use the asset for a period of time in exchange for consideration paid to the asset owner, the less sore. So think about you want to buy a car. This is the car dealer. The car dealer is the less sore. And if you are buying the car, you are the less C. You are the less C. If you're buying the car, the less sore is the dealer. The less sore is going to hand you the key. Okay, so it's a contract between someone who's buying the car and the dealer. The dealer is the less sore. The less sore retain legal type title to the asset. Now, originally, here's what used to happen. This is what we're going to talk about operating leases. Accounting model treated such contract as mutually and executed at signing. What does it mean mutually and executed? It means merely signing a lease does not obligate the less C to record a lease liability on the balance sheet for the future lease payment. So what they, what the way they used to construct the contract is mutually and executed. It means there shouldn't be any liability because no obligation, no liability should be accounted for in the future. Instead, the less C, the buyer of the buyer of the car accounts for these payments as rent expense. So every time the less C makes a payment, it's considered a rent expense. These type of leases that don't exist anymore, they're called operating lease. So an operating lease is when you treat your payment as rent expense. Now, why would you treat your payment as rent expense? Because you did not need the other qualification, which we'll talk about the qualification to be not to be an operating lease. Why? Because the lease is mutually and executed at signing. So it's designed in a way to be treated as an operating lease. So operating lease, what happened is resulted in many abuses. And what are the abuses? The main abuse is off balance sheet financing. What does that mean?  Technically, what you did is you are borrowing money. The lease is technically a loan. But since you treat it as an operating lease, you don't have a loan. All that you have is an expense. Every time you make a payment, it's a rental payment. You make a payment, you debit expense, you credit cash. As a result is your liabilities. The lease is technically is a liability, but it's not recorded. So it's an off balance sheet financing. So operating lease would allow the company to have a loan, a liability without recording that liability. So companies commonly structure lease agreement to make them eligible for operating lease accounting. So they will make the contract in a way. They will draft the contract in a way to meet the operating lease. In other words, to fail other criteria's to make it something other than operating lease, thereby avoiding to recognize lease related that under balance sheet. So this is the background. So now we understand that the operating lease is was the operating lease was good for the company because you did not have to record the liability, but that's no longer the case. So IFRS 16, what happened is was enacted in 2016. It's in response to the problems inherent in the operating lease model. So IFRS 16 now require all leases to be accounted for as a finance lease model. It doesn't matter how you structure the agreement. When you sign the agreement, we're going to consider it the executory lease. We're going to consider it as an asset and as a liability under this model. Signing a lease triggers the balance sheet recognition of both the right of use asset, generally term lease hold asset outside the US, which is the asset and the corresponding lease liability. So simply put, once you sign a lease, it doesn't matter how you drafted that lease. As soon as you sign it, you have to debit an asset and you have to credit a corresponding liability. Now the asset in the US is called, in the US it's called ROU, right of use. Outside the US, since this is an international accounting course, they call it lease hold asset. So you debit an asset, you debit an asset and you credit the liability and it will be equal to the present value of the lease payment because you discount the lease payment just like any other liability. You find the present value of the lease, you find the present value of the liabilities and that's your liability. Okay, then once you have the asset, guess what? You're going to depreciate the asset. You're going to appreciate the right of use over the lease term. So you're going to depreciate this lease hold asset. How are you going to depreciate it? Either over the shorter of the useful life in the lease term. Now, if it's reasonably certain that the lease will obtain ownership of the asset at the end of the lease, then you will go over the expected life of the asset. So some leases at the end of the lease, they hand you the key. It's yours. If that's the case, then you can depreciate the asset over the life of the asset rather than the shorter of the lease or the asset. The finance lease model, which is the new model, account for the lease obligation in a manner similar to a home loan. Basically, you have a home loan. When you make a payment, they are a portion. They are separated between interest, expense and the reduction in the loan. So every time you make a cash payment, part of the cash payment is considered interest, expense. And part of it goes toward the principal amount of the loan using the effective interest rate method, using the effective interest rate method. Also, IAS 36, which is the impairment of asset, apply to those type of assets, apply to the right of use or the lease hold asset, just like you have an asset, regular asset. IFRS was approved in 2016 and takes effect in 2019. Let's take a look at an example to see how this worked. Suppose that Speedy delivery service signed a three-year lease contract for 10 years delivery van on January 1st, year one. Now, if Speedy purchased the van outright, it would have to pay $30,000 per vehicle. Each vehicle has an economic use for the life of eight years. All right. So for simplicity, let's assume that the contract obligates the company to make an annual payment, although that's not true because you make monthly payment, but it doesn't matter. An annual lease payment of $60,000 at the end of each year, okay, for December 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. So you're going to make $60,000 payment for those 10 new delivery truck. We will assume that Speedy borrowing rate is 8%. Under the assumption, the present value of the lease payment, which Speedy is committed, is $154,626. And this is based on the discounting the payment to the present value using 8%, discounting the annuity. The annuity is $60,000 and equal to three, I equal to eight. And you go to the present value of ordinary annuity. Okay, you'd use the stable multiplied by the factor. So the present value is $154,626. Now, if we're using the old method, if we're using the old method, we would not have this lease. We would have an operating lease which would not have an asset and which would not have a liability. Okay, let's keep going. Under IAS 17, lease resembling, Speedy are generally accounted for under the operating lease method. So IAS 17 is the old rule. So IFRS 16 replaced this IAS 17. Okay, so we would use the old rules because it would have met A at the operating lease. This is because the lease term of three years is substantially shorter than the van useful life because we're gonna assume the useful life of the van is 10 years. So three out of 10, it represents only 30% of their life. And this is one of the criteria not to be an operating lease. You have to have the lease life has to be at least 75%, 75%. I believe, I don't know the exact percentages yet. I believe it's 75%, 75%. 30%, you would say this is an operating lease. Okay, but it doesn't matter now whether you said it's an operating or a financing. Under the operating lease method, Speedy would record no right of use or liability at signing. During the lease term, Speedy would simply recognize a rent expense of 60,000 every year. That's not the case anymore. Under IFRS 16, we would have debit an asset, delivery van lease hold. This is an asset 154,626 and we will credit a liability in obligation, a liability. Under the old rules, this entry will not exist. We will not debit an asset. We will not debit a liability. All what we do at the end of every year, we pay 60,000, we debit an expense and we credit cash. Now, because we have an asset, the finance lease would require Speedy to recognize periodic depreciation on the leased asset. Normally with the useful life set equal to the length of the lease contracts, it's three years. So we're going to take the amount of the asset divided by three and every year we will debit 51,542 for depreciation expense. We will credit accumulated depreciation for the same amount to book depreciation. So just basically it's an asset. Then when we make the lease payment, we will debit interest expense 12,371, okay. We will debit lease obligation 47, 47,630 and we'll credit cash 60,000. I believe this should be 70, not 12,370. So you might be asking, how did we come up with this figure? Well, it's the liability, the beginning balance of the liability times 8%. Let me show you. So this way you know where this number coming from. So if we take 154,626, which is the liability times 0.08, this is the interest expense 12,370. 12,370. Then we would reduce this liability by 47,630 and we will credit cash for 60,000. Then obviously the following payment will be different. So this is the schedule. So this is the first payment. The second payment when we booked the second payment, we would credit cash also 60,000. Interest expense is 8,000. This is year two, 8,560,000. 8,560 and the loan, the obligation is debited 51,440. So we have less of interest expense and we are contributing more to the loan. Then the third payment will pay, you know, it's again less interest component more to the loan because the principal is going down. Also, this is the depreciation expense computation. This is the interest expense per year. This is the total, okay, between the two. So notice we have interest expense and we have depreciation expense. We have interest expense and depreciation expense. We have interest expense and depreciation expense, interest expense and depreciation expense. If you notice under the operating lease, if we're treating this as an operating lease, we would have debited 60,60,60 in total 180. If we are treating it as a finance lease, which is the new method, finance lease, those are all total expenses, 63,912, 60,100 to 55,986, the total also 180. So notice the total expense is the same, whether it's a lease under IFRS, which is under the IFRS, or lease under the IAS-16. The total is the same. However, under IFRS we have an interest component and we have a depreciation component. Under the IAS-17 it was only rent expense. But the main difference, I want you to remember to pay attention to under IFRS-16, we have a liability. We recorded a liability. We recorded a liability on the box. Here, we have no liability. We did not have a liability on the box. Now, let's compare IFRS-16 to ACS-842, which is the US standard. Now, you have to understand that ACS-842 preserved the distinction between an operating and a financing. So under the US standard, we still have an operating lease. However, although we have an operating lease, the difference now is we do record an asset and a liability initially. Although it's an operating lease, but we still have that category. So let's take a look at the criteria that make the lease as not an operating lease, which is a finance lease. In fact, the standard classification criteria are virtually identical to that used by the US accountant for many years. So the standard, the way GAP and IFRS look at is this an operating lease or a finance lease, the standard are the same. So they look at the following. And you have to meet one of these criteria. The lease term transfers ownership of the asset to the LSE by the end of the lease term. If this criteria is met, if we say in the lease that at the end of the lease, you'll get the asset, it becomes a non-operating, it becomes a finance lease. If the LSE has the option to purchase the lease at a price less than the market, we call it the bargain purchase, then guess what? You don't have an operating lease, you have a finance lease. You only have to meet one of those. One, the lease term is for the major part of the lease asset economic life. Now, they don't define what's the major life, but anything above 75%, it's called for the major life. So let's go back to those veins. Assuming we have the lease for three years, we divide three years by 10, that's 30% of their life. Under US standard, we'll call this, it doesn't meet the finance lease here, because 30% is less than 75%. Again, they don't tell you what's the major life, but anything above 75%, we can go with it. So if you own an asset more than 75% of its life, then technically you own it. You cannot be considered an operating lease. The present value of the minimum lease payment at the inception of the lease equal to substantially all the fair value of the lease asset, here what they do is 90%, is usually the number that you can use. So when you compute the present value of the payments, if the present value equal to 90%, if the present value equal to 90% of fair value, then basically you bought the asset because you're gonna be paying 90% of the price of the asset. Therefore, you own the asset. And the fifth criteria is the lease is of specialized nature such that only the less see can use it without any major modification. Simply put, you bought a lease, you leased an asset and no one else can use it. Guess what? You bought it, because no one else can use it. It was made for you. Therefore, you technically bought it. What are we saying with these five criteria? You just have to meet one out of five to classify the lease as non-operating. To be an operating lease, it has to fail all of them. To a lease be considered an operating lease, it has to fail all these five criteria. In other words, it doesn't meet criteria one, two, three, four, five. It doesn't meet any of them, then it's called an operating lease. Although it's an operating lease, now in the US we still debit an asset and credit liability, but we treat it differently for the payment. See my other lectures. For the international standard, it doesn't matter. Operating lease don't exist anymore. In the US, they kept that criteria because the way you make payments, it's going to be different. Instead of eliminating the operating lease category, the US achieves in fact similar to that of IFRS 16 by requiring lease assets in lease liability to be recorded for both operating and financing leases. So again, although we're going to call it operating lease, we're going to record an asset and record the liability. So applying the same example under US GAAP, we would still debit an asset. We would still credit a liability. Although in the US, we call this an operating lease. Now the payments, the way we do the payments is a little bit different. Nevertheless, it's an operating lease. The difference lies in the income statement treatment. The US standard require a straight line expense that spread total lease payment evenly over the lease term. So basically every year we will debit rent expense, credit cash. I would say if you really want to learn US GAAP, go to my standard. Go to my standard. Go to my chapter 21 and intermediate accounting. Because it's a little bit more complicated than this entry. But basically you're going to debit expense of 60,000. But you will see how in detail. Let's recap IFRS versus GAAP. This is your expenses under US GAAP 60,000. 60,000, 60,000. Under IFRS, you're going to expense 63,000, 912, 60,000, 102, and 55,968. In total, obviously they equal to each other. But under IFRS, you expense more early on. So it's more conservative treatment because you expense more early on. Now when they were developing the IFRS 16, they coordinated with FASB. And that's why FASB and ASC are very, very similar, very similar. But FASB choose to modify the operating lease method rather than eliminate it. So under US GAAP, we still have operating lease, but it's technically treated like a finance lease. But that's a divergence between US GAAP and IFRS. So the US retention of the operating lease category introduce presentational differences. Now when you discuss the lease and the notes, you're going to discuss it differently. IFRS 16 mandate either a separate presentation or footnote disclosure of leasehold asset as well as a separate reporting of depreciation and interest expense. So this is what IFRS want you to disclose. In the cash flow statement, the portion of the lease payment allocated to principal reduction is a financing outflow. So this is when it comes to the cash flow statement. Remember the payment part of it principal, part of it interest. The principal is considered financing. That's how you're financing the company. The portion allocated to the interest, it's either operating or financing. Usually it's operating depending on how the entity elected under IAS 7, which we'll see in the statement of cash flow next. So remember you make a cash payment. Remember under IFRS, the cash payment is split between interest and principal. The principal is financing the principal on the cash flow statement. The interest, it's going to either operating or financing depending of the asset ready or not ready for its intended use. Under the U.S. standard, the last C must provide balance sheet or footnote disclosure of operating in a finance lease assets and liability. Obviously those are the disclosure. In contrast, the IFRS last C must present the lease expense as a single operating expense. They should present lease payment as operating cash flow, unless the payment are necessary to prepare the asset for its intended use. In that case, it's investing. We just told you this second earlier. I don't know why I put this twice. Well, we'll talk about the cash flow in a separate recording, but this is basically an overview of leases, IFRS versus USGAP. Once again, if you're interested in more learning about USGAP, which is very similar to IFRS, go to my chapter 21 intermediate accounting. I will have the link in the description below. If you're studying for your exam, study hard, good luck, and see you on the other side of success.


Income tax 2021-2022, free tax tools. Getting tax refunds to the max? Diving into income tax 2021-2022. We're gonna be looking at tax tools with two categories or two objectives in mind here. The first objective being looking for those free tools that we might be able to use to complete our own personal tax return. And two, looking for free tools that we might be able to use to learn the tax code, learn tax preparation, and possibly look forward in the future towards a career in taxation, either working for a tax firm or having a tax business. So obviously one tool that will be applicable in either category will be the IRS website. On the IRS website, we have our own account that we would want to be able to log into. So that will be basically on just irs.gov. You should be able to memorize it. You don't have to basically save it anywhere. It's pretty easy website to memorize irs.gov, irs.gov on the homepage. You can sign into your account. So in your account here, the IRS is hopefully getting better and better at providing information such as any kind of estimated payments you have made, some of the benefits that have gone out possibly being the advanced child tax credit, for example, and the other stimulus payments and so on, could be stuff that it's gonna be more and more likely that we'll need access to the accounts in the future, and hopefully the IRS is gonna get better and better at providing that information for ourselves and our personal tax preparation. We also want to train our clients to be accessing those accounts so they can access it a little bit more easily and possibly answer questions as we do tax preparation. So that's one tool. We also have the IRS with regards to the forms and instructions, not so that we can download the forms and fill them out by hand per se, but so that we can look at the instructions primarily here for the individual taxes, those being the instructions for the Form 1040. So anytime you have a question, that's most likely the first place you're gonna go when you're actually doing the data input and we'll actually base a lot of the content on the course that is going through the line by lines of the tax formula following the tax entry, which will be from the instructions to the Form 1040. So that's another key resource. Then we've got the software that we can use. So we have the software that you might be able to get for free and you can search for that on the IRS website by just searching in at irs.gov for IRS free file. And that is gonna be basically a way to sort kinds of software that have a free option to it. So if you yourself are preparing your own taxes and you want to do it and see if you can find free software to actually file the tax return or you're helping someone else, possibly you're helping multiple people, how possibly you can basically do that, basically guide people towards the resources and help them through the different resources that are out there to prepare tax returns to those being the free resources, then these would be some ways to organize this. We'll come back to here and go into this in a little bit more detail. If on the other hand, you're looking for free resources just to practice and learn the tax code, then you might go into some of the professional tax software and see if you can get a free trial or something like that to it to practice the data input there and possibly practice different kind of scenarios for different types of tax returns, software that's more likely the kind of thing that you'll be using in practice. So different types of software. We looked at Lucerte last time, that's what we'll be using here. So if we go into the data input screens in the course, we won't spend a lot of time on the data input screens or anything like that. But the idea of entering the data and then looking at the tax return is faster with professional software because it's not in an interview type process. I'm looking at Intuit because I work with QuickBooks and Intuit also owns Lucerte. So you might look into say the free options for top softwares. This just being an example, I'm not a promoter of Intuit or I'm not getting paid by them in any way. But if you were to look at the Intuit website, which you can basically search for in your browser, you can search for Lucerte tax software or Intuit Pro Connect. And you should be able to find it. It's a little bit more difficult to go into the Intuit website directly for some reason because it's like Pro Connect first. So they've kind of separated their tax information from their other bookkeeping. And when you go into their normal website, you're going to find mainly TurboTax there, which is the individual kind of option, which is probably more widely spread in terms of individuals versus tax preparers that would use something like this. But again, they have this free trial item down here. So you might be able to get access to some of the software. Now the differences between these softwares here is that Lucerte is a desktop option that you might be able to host remotely, but it's on your desktop. Kind of like old software used to be like QuickBooks desktop is on your actual desktop as opposed to on a browser. I believe the Intuit Pro series is as well. So if you get access to those two, you might be able to get free access to work with them. It might not be the most current version. However, it might be 2020 or 2019, but you might be able to practice with those although you can't really file your taxes with them. I believe this one here, that the Intuit Pro Connect is an online version of the software, kind of like a comparison between QuickBooks desktop that's actually on your desktop and QuickBooks online, which is a browser-based software. I still have some concerns with basically the ability for people to hack into a browser-based software, something like that with tax software because I read all these things from the IRS where they're concerned about that kind of stuff. But maybe that's just me and I'm just paranoid with it, but you might be able to practice with that one as well. So here's what the three of them kind of look like. Here's the online software that you can basically work through a browser kind of system and look at that, you might be able to get access to it if say you have a QuickBooks account with Intuit, you might be able to look at that and they've got some nice example files here that you could go in. Obviously this isn't gonna help you prepare your actual tax return unless you pay for some preparing of it, which goes beyond the free option, but you can look at the data input in the format they have here and then jump on over to the actual tax form. So that could be a great tool to work with and I believe if you can get access to that we're in the 2021, if you look at the other version, this is one of the desktop version, not LASERT, and it has a prior year version, 2020, that you could practice data input with on it, which is nice. That was pro series and then LASERT is a desktop version as well, so you can take a look at those items here. We'll be working mainly with LASERT and I like LASERT, I've been using that for a long time, so I think I'm comfortable with it, I have my opinion as biased on it, but in any case, those are some options. Now with the online software here, this is on the Intuit website, irs.gov, these are gonna be third party softwares as well, which typically you would have to pay for, but if your income is below a certain threshold, then you can get access to the free filing of the software and actually use it to file, complete the task of filing your individual software and possibly you can help other people guide them to the appropriate software that would be useful for them. So if you type in iris.gov, iris free file, you've got the two options down here below, which is the first one is gonna be guiding you through tax preparation and the next one is the fillable forms. You don't really typically want the fillable forms unless you feel quite comfortable entering the data because that's more like entering it by hand. So I would go to this first one, choose an irs free file offer, if you're gonna choose one of these irs free file options, do your taxes online for free with irs free file provider. And it's not actually through the IRS, they're gonna point you to third party software, so that's a little deceiving of language, but the government doesn't have to worry about false advertising or anything. So here we go. If you're adjusted gross income, AGI was $73,000 or less, review each provider's offer to make sure you qualify. Some offers include a free status tax return, use the irs free file lookup tool to narrow your list of providers or the browse all offers page to see a full list of providers. After selecting one of the irs free file offers, you will leave the irs.gov website. So find your best option, what will you need? So you can browse the providers here. If you so choose, you can look at all the providers or you can use their lookup tool. Now what these are, these are third party providers that are offering the software for free, but under certain conditions, all those conditions are not the same. So some key conditions that you want to take a look at, one is of course gonna be an income level. So some softwares will have free software at a lower income level than others, but there's also a big condition on the state returns. Do you need a state return that's going to be prepared? If so, you would like the software to fulfill both those needs, the federal and the state. And some softwares will charge for the state or so on or may not charge for the state. That's why this little lookup tool will help you find the one that is free for you in your particular state, for example. And you might have the earned income tax credit, which is a quite complicated credit to calculate. Some softwares may actually say that we're not gonna calculate the earned income credit, for example, and so you wanna make sure that it picks up that. Also for an income could be something that might be a distinguishing factor. Some softwares may be not taking that or may not provide a free option at least for that as well. So make sure that the software provides what you need. I'm just gonna go into browse all of them just so you can see down below. You've got your filtering options up top by the income level, the age, the earned income tax credit eligibility. So once again, that on or off will be a key factor because it's a complex credit that they might not offer for free. Active military, another one that could be a distinguishing factor. And then country of residence, state residence. Again, the state that you are in is gonna be a distinguishing factor because the state tax returns will differ. So here's a couple of the tax places that might be of potential free options. So you got the IRS free file program delivered by the 1040 now. I've never worked with them. I've never worked with most of these tax softwares. So, you know, but they should be tax softwares. So hopefully they'll do the job here but it has an AGI of 73,000 or less. The age is any and the states would be the states here that they are accepting free state, no free state tax preparation in any state. So you have a restriction on the state requirement here. The earned income tax credit included if AGI is met, military is included on this one. So again, all these types of tax softwares will typically be more of an interview type of process as opposed to kind of like, I'm assuming I've not used them but as opposed to like this kind of thing which is more of a strict data input type of thing, a little bit more fast data input. So you got the tax act IRS free file program, IRS free file program delivered 73,000 less versus this one which is 65. This one has an age limit because there's some more complications with tax returns that are over that age. This one has the states that are included here, free fed filing and then the states, no free state. And then this one, I love the name of this one, tax layer but it's getting up there, it's getting better because they have a lower AGI. So I'm assuming that they're saying I'm only gonna do it for free if it's below 39,000, age, any age, any state though which is nice filing residents, free 1040 tax return, free 1040taxreturn.com then you got free USA, 41,000 AGI limit versus 43,000. You've got freeyourtaxes.com and OLT online tax. So again, this one's between 16 and 73. Again, I've not used any of those softwares and you'll notice that TurboTax isn't on that list although I think TurboTax might provide a free option as well if your income's below a certain threshold. I don't know why that would be the case and they wouldn't have been in the IRS program other than just internal tensions of some kind. I don't know, but those are basically the options. So just a quick recap, clearly the IRS website is gonna be one of the free resources you wanna take advantage of with instructions and your account and then whether or not you're using the tools to learn tax law and possibly to work in a CPA firm or accounting firm or tax firm or to start your own business versus are you just trying to get your own tax return done? You might then choose your free tools based on that decision going towards your own learning perspective. You might try to look in to see if you can get the more professional tax software for a free trial version and look into how those are working and if you're on the personal side then you might work on the tax software that's more of an interview type of process. Any tax software though would be good to practice with.


Appalachian Wireless is Appalachian Advantage. Unlimited text talk and two gigs of data for as low as $45 a month. Or if you like, get five lines on eight gigs of data for just $145 a month. Sea store for details. Better service, bigger savings. That's today's Appalachian Wireless and East Kentucky Network Company. Dr. Sherry Zilka has been at the helm of Big Sandy Community and Technical College since October 1st. Today at the Pressonsburg campus, the community got to formally meet her. Dr. Zilka succeeded a pair of interim presidents who's served over the past 10 months. She said she's looking forward to a bright future at Big Sandy. I call the community colleges the eldest island of higher education. We take everything that we can. We get them from where they are to where they want to be. What attracted me to Big Sandy was I heard a lot of good things about the communities that they exist in and also just the beauty of the country around here. So I put in the application and was very pleasantly pleased to be able to be the president and CEO of Big Sandy Community College. Just to keep moving forward, to recruit as many students as we can and to get them where they need to be in order to have their educational goals achieved and to get them employed in sustainable wages as well as help them realize their potential that they didn't even know they had. So that's the main focus of student success, student completion and get them back out into the community. Dr. Zilka previously served as provost at the Wayne County Community College District in Detroit. In Pressonsburg, Chris Anderson, EKB News.


Jack, congrats on the win. You get the victory, but this Wizards team was fighting back, constantly, constantly back and forth again, especially in that fourth quarter. What did it take to kind of pull it out? I think this game we actually did show some composure and poise at the end, which was great to see. We got in our sets, we got the ball where we wanted to, made them double team us. And for the most part, we were in the right position to make the right play. So overall, good win by our guys. We've been grinding our guys with minutes and these games are coming fast and furious, but they're answering the bell and I'll give them credit. And I know a guy that you're used to now at this point, Katie, to finish tonight with 39 points, another efficient, a 13-20 from the field. What is it just like to coach Katie every single game and what you've seen from him? Yeah, it's, you know, sometimes I have to make sure I don't take him for granted.  Our relationship has grown. The ability to talk to him about what's needed, what's missing, all that's been a joy. And, you know, we talked about tonight, you know, he's really the only one that's kind of guaranteed. His stretch in the first and third are probably gonna look the same. Tonight we had to change Kai's minutes because we didn't have been and we wanted Kai and Kevin to always be on the court. So our group is evolving and I keep stressing the ability to be flexible with the whole idea of trying to win. And Kevin has that on his mind all the time. As he steps on the floor, he wants to win.


All right so let me kick off. Welcome everyone. We have with us today two people. I want to at least introduce and share just a bit about this project and the kickoff for today and kind of the history. So first welcoming Kara Price who has been very instrumental in creating the Year Voices initiative or project which this webinar is the first part of. So the year voices I'll just give a brief little tidbit about it and Kara if you can put in the chat the link to our blog. So your voices learning listening sharing is a initiative that is for academic year 2022-2023. So this fall and spring with the emphasis of focusing on student voices. So for all of you that are students we want to hear from you. We are including four EDI focused webinars. We also will be setting up community learning spaces in which you can join sessions just for students to discuss whatever you'd like in those sessions. And then we will be creating four quarterly E newsletters. So the link is in the chat you can look at that further at your leisure. But this webinar is the first of our kickoff of the year voices project. And so I'm going to introduce Dr. Leslie Farmer. She is with Cal State University Long Beach so one of our sister schools and so she's going to speak with us today about visual literacy in terms of cultural connotations. I'll turn it over to you Leslie. Thank you so much it's such an honor to be able to be part of this project in terms of presenting. So I'm glad that you folks are here. Know that if you have you know questions you can put them in chat. I will probably be asking about your voices as well while we're kind of sharing this information. So specifically I'm going to be talking about visual literacy in terms of cultural connotations. And just a little bit about myself. I coordinate the teacher librarian services credential program at California State University Long Beach. I also manage the information and communications technology literacy community within Merlot which is an international repository database of learning materials. And I've been interested in visual literacy for a really long time. My minor is art. My husband was in art marketing and you know I continue to really push on this particularly now with so much international access to information that is visual. You know the internet used to be mainly textual and so we're kind of broadening that particularly with social media we're seeing a lot more visuals. So there are some real consequences of that. So what I want to do today is just share with you then what are some of the visual literacy components and how they manifest themselves in different cultures so that you'll be more comfortable in cross-cultural competencies. And also I'll be talking about the library's role in these endeavors as well. So again we're going to be talking about a little bit of cultural issues, talking about visual literacy, explaining the library's role, and then I'll be you know sharing with you some resources and strategies. So let's face what we're talking about culture. We're talking about you know group beliefs, social norms, and traits. So things that we have in common that are ongoing cultures can be of all sorts. We tend to think in terms of like ethnicities or nationalities but yeah let's face it. Librarians have their own culture within that and even school librarians have their own culture let alone you know Boy Scouts or Goths etc. So you know a lot of these norms are you know at the subconscious level just because you know these are things that we've just practiced so much that they are you know integrated. And again how we respond you know to culture you know depends a lot on our context. It depends on our own backgrounds you know what we bring to the table both cognitively and emotionally. And what happens sometimes is particularly in cultural arts so you know images, visuals, is that it gets to be it can be really shallow. So we're going to do a little drilling today in our brief time together okay. So again I'm talking about cultural arts that is sort of again where it really where the culture is central in that piece but we're also going to be talking more generally but in cultural arts in particular. We're looking at what are sort of like visual patterns that you would see within you know a particular you know culture. So you might think of like Indian saris you know you might see that even in the appearance of food quite frankly. But each of those that express kind of their own norms their cultures what's important to them. It could be you know by a single artist it could be a group you know the idea just like you know folklore you know has kind of like a whole group thing so that can be the case as well with cultural arts you'll see that particularly you know with those materials that are kind of like before they've been you know historically written down. So again you know you would see this maybe in patterns of woven baskets would be an example and the contemporary artists may be doing it as a group they may you know be pulling on their own cultures they may be adding you know to that because we know that cultures are dynamic. But you know all these cultural arts all these cultural visual images then are ways to communicate within and across different cultures. So we kind of have that as a as a mainstay in there. So now then let's look at visual literacy and these elements are from the International Visual Literacy Association. They still hold and that is that you're able to take a visual image you know be able to access it understand it appreciate it that you yourself can generate visual images and be able to communicate you know effectively and that also includes using technology these days. And also to be able to take visual thinking as a way to solve problems. So you know you know whether you have like a concept map or you know you're kind of drawing a model you know all of those kinds of things are ways then to approach knowledge and representation of that knowledge. So visual elements themselves and the principles of of visuals and visual literacy are international. Basically we're just codifying what people have experienced and generated you know throughout history. So it's sort of the you know the obvious things that that we deal with you know dots and lines and value and the size of things and motion is also part of the of the visual scope. And then in terms of actually creating an image of composition so to speak there are again these universal principles again codified just by you know observation over time across cultures you know the idea of balance of contrast whether it's in line or color you know the idea of different patterns repeating and sometimes in a arithmetic way and the idea of both unity and variety. And a lot of this is you know our elements that you might not even know on a conscious level or name them but they are you know part of our you know human way of of visually representing ideas.  And for example in in this image you know right here you can appreciate it without knowing any of the culture but again here we're talking about iconic versus realistic this is more you know iconic you know in terms of kind of a you know Hindu you know religion and its use again is in terms of you know representing you know gods and you know our behavior that is impacted you know by gods and by you know engaging in this and perspective here so the higher something is in you know these kinds of artwork that means the farther away it is and it could be exactly the same size but the higher it is then the farther away it is and the lower down it is then the closer it is and also here you're talking about earth and then you know heaven so here you know the the elevation you know where it is in the composition shows both distance as well as particular you know values. So the more that you know about the culture and the more that you know how those visual principles are manifested in a particular culture then the richer your experience is going to be and also the less misunderstanding you're going to have in terms of engaging with those visuals. So again when we're talking about visual processing we're talking about parts that are universal so dots and lines you know that kind of a thing our brain is you know going to process that is is pretty universal there might be some shadings on that for instance if you're colorblind there's going to be you know it's like differences but the mental process right so the connotations the context on that is going to be subjective now here this is kind of a simplistic you know example but let's face it you know some people would see this as a base and some people would see this as two faces you know interacting again the process is the same but how then we interpret that image is subjective and in some cases culture enters you know into that process. So one of the pieces that's really important when we're discussing about you know visual literacy is semiotics and the definition there is kind of both the science as well as the arts the craft of interpreting culture it's you know knowledge manifestations by its expressions behaviors and artifacts and meaning that you know the same image may have a different interpretation depending on the culture. So we're going to start with this image right here not my face but you know this image so when you're looking at it what what meaning do you take out about what you know as you're as you're looking at this image what do you see what what do you think it represents so you can just put that in the chat okay so a car or a gospel choir right so what makes you think that it's a gospel choir what parts of that image make you think that okay so stained glass all right so probably could be a church does a blue and white robe so you could be a choir and have blue and white robes and not be gospel so you're guessing that there's there's singing so what images so the robe's kind of in there it's so you see church okay so when you see motifs so are you talking about kind of the designs in the borders okay so community because here's a group of people okay so realize that you had to have experience of church or seeing you know stained glass in a window that you had to experience or see it you know in a prior part you know robes you're seeing you know the color of faces it looks like they're people right you have had okay so then arms raised as in doing a choir so again you're bringing your background you know to this if you had never you know seen insides of a church if you hadn't experienced kind of those motifs that you're seeing in the background on and on the sides you might not you could appreciate this it's got you know balance it's got good contrast so you know the principles you know are all there so kind of pleasant bright kind of colors so some connotations there but the more that you understand culturally you know some of this then you have a greater appreciation you know of that image all right so then let's take a look at so these cultural connotations of visuals because that's where you know you can sometimes get into trouble so depending on the culture it for you know owls and I have a couple of little you know stuffed owls in my office you know so we kind of think of owls and wisdom in you know a lot of us culture but in other kind in other cultures means they're stupid or it's brutal right uh rabbits so you know you think a little bunny rabbits maybe you're thinking of you know some cartoon type rabbits so we've got the idea of reproduction but also it could go into like promiscuity it can also be food right and in some places it's kind of like their pests uh thumbs up you know this circled them in some cultures that's an obscene sign and then um even things about you know um you know two intersecting lines can be mathematical it could also be a value of showing like get away or something that's evil so again we need to know you know where we're like for instance we are creating webpages you know we need to be cognizant of that or when we're seeing you know other webpages as well one that I have a problem with is a librarian is a book room because you know they basically are eating books that destroy property so uh you know there's got to be some better images that go along with that uh in my that's my own experience it's good if I give you a little bias there okay yes so good well I'm glad that you spotted that someone notice about this this is not an owl this is a cat and yes this is a fat cat and so get at the idea of money that's so she was able to read that good you know the cigar again this is very you know uh us oriented because if nothing else the dollar sign um and usually when we think of fat cat so that's usually a negative connotation that certainly makes a difference from just a you know kitty cat or hello kitty right so um you know there are you know nuanced ones of within each of these figures so like Bugs Bunny is a lot different maybe than the Easter Bunny right so thank you for catching that all right color is a huge thing in terms of cultures and and connotations um so again you know white has a different you know meaning in european cultures as opposed to you know eastern um asian ones um so same thing with you know red i'm sure you're in danger in european and japanese cultures in china's joint festivities vietnamese wedding dresses are often red um you would be fairly um rash I think uh or very confident to wear a red wedding dress in in the united states you know for example and then game of thrones has this whole connotation with red in their wedding right um and then yellow for example cowardice of western cultures in china it was you know restricted just to the emperor and it's used as a color of mourning in Mexico that so this is just the tip of the iceberg and I have on the bottom some URL to a really good site that goes you know by different cultures and what those different colors mean so again you know just as an example even something like the color blue you know you can get more nuanced um for example there is a color blue that the united states um dentists often use and it's just show you know very professional looking but in britain that hue of blue is kind of you know considered not very professional at all and they use a different color blue to show that you're really classy and professional so just little things like that a really interesting activity to do is to look at websites from different cultures different you know countries and you're going to see different color themes some of them tend to be you know have really bright colors uh some of them tend to have really um dark ones the images uh it's another example in terms of representation so um I've seen a number of um images of websites from um Islamic you know really uh cultures where the women are never shown like a as an individual but they might be as a group or that there won't be very many women that are pictured but rather it's men that are pictured both individually as in a group so that's another thing that you can look at is to see what uh kinds of images you know are used so again um when we're looking at visuals we really should be thinking about you know the the cultural context of it so are are those images then basically supporting reinforcing promoting a particular you know culture how do those images reflect certain beliefs and norms you know what what is their you know worldview you know um what kinds of stereotypes and stereotypes isn't necessarily about we're really talking about again codification of trends that are sometimes you know uh fairly representative they certainly don't get at everybody and I think that's where we kind of like over generalize that's sort of what stereotypes do and again they're based on perceptions which may be accurate or really inaccurate um you know reading you know the the worldview in terms of you know who's in control hierarchy of values etc so when we're looking at um this image you know here uh what kinds of of um you know values do you think are proponent do you see this as a uh image that tends to be do you read this as a positive image as a um you know um is it promoting you know something is it you know respectful um what do you see is their worldview so if you put that in the chat or think about it individually okay so positive from a Mexican perspective good good so yeah so they're right respect and love for family okay and what about that do you know day of the dead okay which is celebratory holiday right and so again you know um folks that have put on the you know their ideas and chat you know are aware of those cultural things right so joy and how why does this seem to be joyful for you what about the image seems joyful what elements right honoring okay good so smiles now some people might think that that's like uh so you're interpreting that the showing of the teeth is as a smile all right um good so the colorful right the color the you know the use of color absolutely all right and I think it's real interesting to see that that they tend to be like you know pink there might be some you know feelings of uh being more feminine so again you know different colors have different gendered connotations as well and I'm seeing that you folks are also being able to make those personal connections you know if it's your family or friends or again experiences you may have seen the movie coca you know so that again informs you in terms of looking you know at at these images and even the fact that you've got roses in there so usually roses I have a positive um you know perspective it would be interesting to know if in some other cultures roses have a negative you know perspective as well or that they're not as as valued United States and Mexico roses are quite highly valued all right so that kind of gives you some ideas in terms of of how we then need to think about you know visual literacy not only because of kind of those components but also because of the cultural contexts so again um and librarians what is our role in terms of visual literacy and UNESCO really pushes on libraries and cultural arts as does IFLA international federation of library associations and institutions and IFLA would agree with this and that you know UNESCO says quote we may adopt the existing cultural heritage cultivate it and create something new out of it then we share artifacts with others and contribute our artifacts to the pool of cultural heritage so they're very much into the idea of cultural heritage where we come from using those elements as then part of our continued you know lives and onwards to make new traditions to sustain our our heritage to share it with others so that we have a better appreciation of what makes this unique and what makes us you know all part of humanity so again when we are looking at these images and then as you work you know with your you know clientele your students then here's some questions that are really basic for not only visual literacy but also media literacy in general media literacy basically saying how does the format impact the message in terms of its creation it's the it's message and how it's disseminated what's the agenda so with that you know here are just you know very straightforward questions to think about it's like so who created the message right so from that culture I have to understand also that the images that I've shown you have been created by folks that were of that particular you know culture but it could be that you know people will create images about a culture of which they are not a part of so for example my slides backgrounds you know I have sort of a East Asian field to them and I'm not of that culture but I'm using that to represent concept of culture so we do need to think about you know on who's creating the image you know is it a person of that culture is another is it a person of another culture and their understanding of that culture or how they might be you know their attitude towards that culture so again what tech techniques then are used to track your attention so again you're using those visual images we saw in both of the examples that I've given you know bright colors you know lots of information kind of interesting compositions all of those then you know things that you could relate to so those are some of the techniques that they used and quite frankly both of them are kind of they use the compositions of a balance of symmetry a variety of unity all of those principles so how might different people experience that message differently from you so it's good for you to self-reflect about how that impacts you but also think about you know how might someone else you know from a different culture you know a different set of values you know perceive this or that they might not understand or they could be confused by an image so again you know what values what points of view are represented or omitted are not shown right that you know the the ideas between the lines so to speak and then what was the purpose you know of that image or was it to influence someone was it to celebrate was it to be you know derogatory about a particular value or or group a belief you know a concept so these are then are questions that you can ask your own you know library users as well to help them to be more conscious aware and conscious then of images and their cultural connotations and again just focusing specifically on culture you know think about what kinds of cultural patterns cross-format so you talking about photograph you know from day at the dead so are those same things you see though that that same stuff in videos we can see those in 3d objects we'll see those on websites we'll see those in books we'll see those in magazines and newspapers and yet you know the those main figures especially you know of the skull the use of the color do cross those different mediums within that culture right different cultures may well be known for different kinds of cultural visual skills I'm pushing this not only to you know visual but also like you know singing performance as well but again I originally from Spokane Washington and the indigenous folks that area were known for their their basketry for example and when you think of the hope is you'll see a oftentimes of you know ceramics again you know so in Ghana there's you know wonderful weaving so you know what skill you know so different cultures are kind of known for being really expert in certain things you think of Belgian lace is is another you know example and then you know how how then do they those folks express their their values you know visually and then you know again how those cultural arcs reflect also events that happen so again here's the day of the dead we saw the image of the choir so they are social event is a religious event for example and then you know what cultural messages are conveyed in those art so those are questions that you know can kind of like look at a body of different types of of artistic expressions visual expressions and then what that says about that culture now some cultures are more you know homogeneous you know than others some are very diffuse if you're to say like you know the people who live in United States there's kind of a United States culture that's really you know can be very diverse right and so you know it's very porous and part of that is because you know our country you know US country comes you know involves a lot of different people of different kinds of cultures and so you know your your visuals can be really widely widely different and the norms could be very diverse where you know you think of Iceland and it's pretty much the same kind of ethnic group and you're going to you know even current day you know visuals will have you know weavings will have sort of a continuing look you know to them and some of the you know visual icon a country is you know traditional that has kept up to you know the current you know life again getting a little bit beyond visuals even their their music even their pop music will oftentimes build on some of the traditional tonalities so again you know a particular image number one and how that plays out and then you know the visual arts in general in terms of different cultures so how do we that think not only about interpreting existing visual messages but also in their production kind of hinted at that at the last slide how how do different cultures then approach you know visual arts but also you know how then we can support that idea of production and different strategies how can we as librarians then kind of be into you know that picture so starting out by kind of like curating visual collections of different cultures and you can do it you know a couple ways both in terms of a particular you know culture but also it could be you know concepts or even things you know thematically and how different cultures then express you know what horses are you know how they're depicted in different cultures for example really simple one to have you know your own users explore their own cultural you know arts and then also for then then to take those elements that they may have researched and then they could then use those motifs those different kinds of you know ways of looking at perspective for example and to then generate art that is very culturally rich right very culturally specific for example and then you could also do a called a cultural mash-up art that is different kinds of cultures and a really good example you know of that that makes a lot of money quite frankly is fashion so we know that you know fashion designers you know do reference different cultures and then that's how they will you know reinterpret them to to fashion so again whether it's a kind of the the a sorry look or you know different kinds of accessories and different uses of of different combinations of colors um boleros would be you know an example hats will oftentimes we basically have references or connotations from from different cultures so that can be an interesting thing and again plays very well in the United States where where you could also look and see what kinds of cultural mash-up art exists and then how you know your own users then could also look at combinations of different cultures and here we have kind of the whole Star Wars you know cultures and Comic Con I mean that's a whole you know culture in itself and how they are creating you know costumes right that are reflective of their own kind of pop culture so it does cultures don't necessarily have to have been started you know pre-history you know new cultures are also developing and emerging so I want to just share with you some resources that could be useful for you so UNESCO has a site called Memory of the World and this was started in 2000 you know this is images from 2013 but it continues this is when they were kind of like starting it so there you'll see they have you know cultural you know sites but these are also different artifacts from from different cultures and they are well tagged you with a you know subject headings etc again from all around the world this is the International Children's Digital Library and this is run out of the University of Maryland and this has I'd say it's strongest in terms of picture books again from around the world from from different countries and they're pretty good about having a lot of traditional stories oftentimes because you everybody you know people can look at these and access them that they tend to look at public domain works and a lot of those are traditional stories so you can really get some good you know cultural references you know on there thank you Dr. Villagram for putting these URLs on in the chat I appreciate that so and they're also in different languages as well so again visually you can you know look at these to see you know what kinds of patterns you're seeing in a number of different books from the same culture or they have one collections like Mother Goose ones so you can see how Mother Goose stories might look different when they are told from different countries. ISL the International Association of School Librarians is a unique organization and it does have folks from around the world and to kind of help their own students again these are school librarians to to look at different cultures to appreciate different cultures to cross cultures they have a project called Gigalit and you know they're stating this is one example again from earlier one of their first years they have doing this I say that each culture has their own kind of proverbs and traditions so children then get to share that there's also an international bookmark project so children create bookmarks and then share them you know across different cultures you know drawings from you know different you know cultures and again a way to look at you know how different kids are depicting you know their family life for example as well as you know sharing those different ideas and just looking at them from a visual literacy perspective. So the Smithsonian has some great sites especially under their you know education piece in terms of visuals and looking at different cultures so you're going to see some great lessons and great culture some great educational you know pieces on that great artifacts and again because the Smithsonian has like a museum of African Americans of Native Americans and they're going to be having one for the Latinx experience so again as well as you know historical things from other parts of the world so this is a really rich you know site. This is from MIT the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and so they have a project that's been going on now for you know a generation called visual visualizing cultures so again they will they have a whole curriculum that's involved you know with that they talk about how you know in exploration and colonization how that has impacted folks and how that is represented you know by different cultures both those that are kind of the colonizers or oppressors and those folks who you know have been colonized by others so you can get some really interesting interactions that way looking at the same event from you know the different sides of folks that are involved you know in those particular activities. ECAI electronics cultural atlas initiative is really fun you can look at you know different artifacts based on you know the culture or part of the world can also there's so you're going to see by you know atlases can do it by time and so there's lots of different ways that you can parse out this database. Global memory net is another of really good site for you know looking at different collections of artifacts and you can see there so it's almost like a collection of collections so you're seeing that you know you've got ones from like of all natures so sometimes they're specific for instance like human opium ore and then you know have like museums or sometimes it's basically by you know the country you've got like Chinese 56 ethnic groups here you've got you know antique maps so it crosses a lot of different ways you could see you can do it by collections by countries by timelines so you can have great great fun with that. This is from Taiwan and fairly recent and what they were trying to do was to digitize their historical artifacts you can get a little bit of translations you can use google translate but this is basically for their own you know country but it is a photo museum so even if you can't read this stuff you can at least get some idea of the visuals what did they choose to show what do what patterns do you see what values are you seeing in there because this is a really good example of how you know a country then decides what's important to share within their community and make you know public to folks so that's that's another way then to to drill down into you know visual literacy. The Library of Congress has a number of different collections that they've digitized so the Library of Congress collects not only books and many you know print kinds of things but they also collect you know videos baseball cards realia etc so again you know they are capturing you know experience of folks that are you know within you know this geographic you know space and you can see that you can browse them by topic you can also you know browse it by you know timeline by by geographic etc so this is another really you know rich way to look at difficulties within the United States and to see if you do happen to see some patterns that cross different you groups in in the US and again understand that these are items that the Library of Congress collected so while they try to be as inclusive as possible you know they could well be missing some things as well. The Taiwan one would be trickier I think if you just go if you type in Taiwan photo museum you'd probably be able to to get to that. So this is a really fun thing from the Asian art museum how to read a woodblock print and the reason I wanted to share this is it points out the importance of the actual resource the materials and how they are handled artistically visually and then and so they talk about you know the printmaking thing so you're going to see a lot about process in terms of visuals and culture and why they chose you know wood prints and part of that has to do with dissemination of information as opposed to a painting which is unique and only you know could be owned by one person and they're the only ones that see it or painting might be in a public place that other people can see it but only if they are there now we're digitizing this it's broader but you know historically you know how do you share information visually with a lot of people so wood blocks then were one way to do that so looking at the techniques how they approach that medium is very culturally defined and so this is a really good site for that and then it will also then talk about then how do you interpret those images in other words you know some of this is pretty realistic some of of wood blocks are more kind of iconic you know so a collective understanding of what different images means and different elements with an image mean and even colors etc so this goes into both the process as well as content and again within a cultural understanding so this is again another really rich site for visual literacy so that's your turn so here's kind of a a current image so what what do you see that that could harken to different cultures or have a certain worldview this is current so french and you know that because okay okay what else what other kind of maybe some cultural things that you see could be french canadian okay and why okay red and green colors you my miff christmas right and then you've got noel okay the french and more snow all right so france does have snow i've been in france and snow but yeah uh we think more canada more snowy than than france don't we yeah any other elements could there be a different any other cultures that might be represented here gnomes okay so you know what culture are those right gnomes and it's usually gno and yes right so um but you say this is more kind of iconic more than realistic or a little bit of stereotypes there get the snow going iconic okay so those little white things are probably snow huh right so um star okay and and so it's sort of like a gnome but it could be it could obviously also be interpreted as a tree very good okay it could be the north star all right all right or it could be a christmas star all right good all right so um so a little bit of reveal um this is my christmas card from last year and uh so some history behind it so those little characters are uh what we call uh tompton t o m t e n which and the that's the plural for tompton and those are swedish uh little kind of like gnomes and they're very traditional and my background um all my relative my you know past relatives are from sweden and i visit sweden ever so often uh most recently in 2018 just before covid and um so these are little tompton which are are like little teeny figures and they're like house elves all right and they can be somewhat mischievous but they can also be trying you know give you good luck in the house and so they are associated oftentimes with snow and they usually have like a beard kind of a thing and um again they're having fun i don't know if you if you felt that sense of like yeah this looks sad it looks like happy and so um fishing is a big thing in sweden and also they have san luchia day and they'll have like you know um you know stars and so very good about the christmas tree so yeah that little gnome in the in the middle can be translated also as like a kind of christmas tree kind of a thing um so the gnome on the left is on candy canes candy canes are actually originated in southern sweden so i thought that would be kind of fun and so where is the joyo noel because in sweden it would be god yule and basically it was my son who you know we've also spent some time in france um and he says like i like i prefer joyo noel to good yule and i think more people would understand that you know and i said like sure so um the composition in terms of it uses balance there's some variety there's a unity again you know kind of the stereotypes of the pine trees so that could be another reason why you thought canadian is like so those look like evergreen trees that's what they're supposed to do and again this is something that i drew and again the colors absolutely you know the classic you know christmas color chart colors in sweden for that you know as well and then kind of the the rhythm of the using of the blue then is is repeated in in the words as well so you don't have to know anything about sweden obviously uh you don't have to know anything about france because you can kind of figure out the noel and joy joys if you you know the english are going to be a good shape but this is kind of the but i was kind of co-opting some um you know cultural references you know for for the card yes sarin that's exactly how you spell that um for good yule so um with that i also want you to know that uh got lots of references you know here and um so some of you can uh you know take notes by clicking on your camera again this will be recorded it's uh i really think that uh visual literacy is kind of underrepresented in under value because people say well everybody can see well not everybody but a lot of people can see so why do we need to teach this but once you kind of understand some of the principles you know behind the visuals different aspects to look at and then layer that with the importance of cultural understanding and again cross cultural understanding then it's more important than ever and again being culturally sensitive when you send a message to other folks that you know um they may have a different connotation for your use of colors or uses of images so being aware of that um it helps to um you know as you front load how you generate images is is really important and again the more that librarians can you know share um you know visual images from different cultures have people looking at it then i think the more appreciative we can be so with that we've got a couple minutes for questions or thoughts or comments that was amazing um dr farmer i loved all of your sources and resources for everyone that's attending or listens to this i think there's a lot of rich um well content you provided but opportunity here for all of us moving forward um so i really appreciate it i don't have any questions i just want to say special thank you um and for helping us kick off your voices absolutely if there's questions please place them in the chat um i'm going to put in again our blog if you want to check out your voices and we do have our next webinar will be november 15th um so please register for that if you're interested and i'll give you that direct link as well super thank you so much folks for being here for participating you know this is a great program and um i encourage you when i tell my students at the end of each class is go forth and do good work it's uh librarians really are you know facilitators for sharing knowledge sharing information and we empower people yes thank you again i'm not seeing any questions you're getting a lot of thank yous in the chat yeah i appreciate that so again i'm a librarian that's why you got lots of references and and sources so that you can make it your own and share with others thank you again


Interesting enough this past week I was actually working on a project up in Rhode Island and a lot like this particular facility that we're at here most people go online and what they're doing is they are looking at opportunities and they're wanting to respond to RFPs and bids immediately. The particular project that I was bidding we actually started looking at that project back in September of 2020. So a year ago we started looking at that project, digging into what the requirements were, responding to a sources saw. My team put together multiple packages that we submitted with all of our past performance, all of our history, everything to pre-qualify us for this particular IDIQ MAC five-year contract. Now it's a MAC meaning multiple war construction contract, IDIQ, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity vehicle, so it's a five-year $249 million project. Ultimately it's not five years or $249 million, specifically for me they're gonna pick five winners but the point is that we started doing our due diligence a year ago. I was tracking it, we've had four meetings where I flew up to Rhode Island, we met with my teams, met with our attorneys, we met with our subcontractors, we looked at what the requirements were and then when it came out a few months ago we were already prepared, we already had knowledge of it, we already knew what was the the customer's needs. Between the time where we put together the sources saw and the time when RP came out we were working on that military installation, we were working on that naval base, we were already knew the contracting officer, we already knew the janitors, we knew the project manager, we knew the clients, we knew the building, we knew the company that worked at the building before us, we knew the designer of record, we knew the architect, so and that's for the seed project, so we had all this intelligence that we had accumulated over that one-year period of time that oftentimes you who were just looking on a computer for the very first time you don't have that type of information, right, because you failed to do your due diligence, you failed to do your homework, or you didn't allow yourself enough time in order to do that, so I like to say to folks is that you're competing against people like me out there, you're competing against people like me who put together a monstrous team, in fact I'm just coming off of putting together a package for another five-year $200 million IDIQ out in Tobey Hanna and so we already had the luxury of our team working together, we had the luxury of putting together a package that was probably, I don't know, 400 pages, we already had the luxury of having our CPARS rating, our PPQs, see these are things that if you don't even know what I'm saying, you're far behind and you need to continue learning, continuing further your education and you probably need to invest in a program or a person to help you with that. Going back to the IDIQ, having our CPARS, having our PPQs, having put together packages, having our proposal writer, when we meet on our team's calls, which for most of you are Zoom calls, we're meeting eight, nine people deep and so we have an entire proposal team, we've got our financial manager, we have, we actually divvy up the work between five different people who are actually writing various components of that project. So I just want to caution everyone out there who thinks that you can jump into this and immediately start tackling or taking on contracts like myself and companies like myself when you don't have the presence of mind to actually invest in learning, researching, studying the market, studying customer, understanding all aspects of that particular opportunity. So what am I saying? What I'm saying is that in one of my earlier videos we discussed bid, no bid checklist and so that's something that we give out to all of our students who take our courses and our platform is a bid no bid checklist which helps you to determine whether or not you should respond to that bid, meaning that there's probably 12 or 15 items on that list that says, helps you make a determination of what we call the go-no-go and you should be discussing internally amongst the people that are in your group and your alliances of a go-no-go strategy for your team. If you don't have that, definitely you want to work with someone who does have access to something very similar in nature or reach out to someone from our organization so that we can help you get to the point where you decide because time is money and we all have very fine amount of time and a fine amount of money which is a fine amount of resources. So again I hope that to share or set light on kind of the process that we go through the things that we do and how we actually go about deciding whether we want to pursue this opportunity. Something else I forgot to mention was that we knew all of the competitors, we know their strengths, we know their weaknesses, we were guessing their names before we even got there. We knew five out of the six people that showed up, the companies because of the size, the scope and the capability of the project, we knew the people who were qualified to do this. So again having the presence of mind, if one of our competitors actually responds to this, we know where their deficiencies are and if we decide we can actually initiate a protest that we have a 90% chance of winning because of their deficiencies. So keep that in mind, I just want to share that and let everyone know out there kind of the process that I go through and what's all involved in putting together a MAC contract or an IDIQ. 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