[00:01.510 --> 00:04.870]  All right, we're going to get started with the next panel.
[00:04.990 --> 00:05.850]  Just a couple of reminders.
[00:06.030 --> 00:08.390]  All the discussions you can purchase on DVD.
[00:08.590 --> 00:15.390]  So if you missed one that's in the next room, you couldn't decide which one you wanted to go to, you can buy both on DVD.
[00:15.910 --> 00:19.710]  They're burned right after each session and are available right out there.
[00:20.090 --> 00:22.370]  Also, please keep the space clean.
[00:22.490 --> 00:23.370]  Pick up after yourself.
[00:23.610 --> 00:25.410]  Turn your mobile phones to vibrate.
[00:25.590 --> 00:27.690]  It's always quite helpful.
[00:27.690 --> 00:38.610]  And please, the Hotel Pennsylvania has been quite nice to us, so please be nice back to them and keep the hijinks outside of the hotel, i.e.
[00:39.070 --> 00:44.630]  turning off televisions with infrared devices that you might have on your keychain, things like that.
[00:44.890 --> 00:46.810]  It would be greatly appreciated.
[00:47.730 --> 00:49.330]  But let's get to the next discussion.
[00:49.510 --> 00:57.590]  These guys have been at many HOPE conferences and I personally support their effort financially as well as you should.
[00:59.390 --> 01:23.330]  Since the 90s, when radio stations and radio conglomerates who had 12 stations, 18 stations, were suddenly able to buy every station in town and form what are called clusters, which I always add an extra word after cluster, radio has really taken a nosedive to what it used to be and that is a mouthpiece of the community.
[01:23.330 --> 01:43.950]  And the Prometheus Radio Project has been fighting for low power FM stations and has been doing radio barn raising and have done at least 11 that I know of set up radio stations in communities for communities as opposed to more crap for clear channel.
[01:44.690 --> 01:48.970]  This is Pete Tridish and Steph 99 of the Prometheus Radio Project.
[01:55.320 --> 01:56.260]  Good morning.
[01:56.500 --> 01:57.280]  Good Saturday morning.
[01:57.480 --> 01:57.980]  I'm Stephanie.
[01:58.340 --> 01:59.160]  This is my friend Pete.
[01:59.420 --> 02:03.180]  We work with an organization called the Prometheus Radio Project based in West Philly.
[02:03.400 --> 02:07.500]  And it's an organization that helps community groups all over the world build their own radio stations.
[02:08.080 --> 02:12.340]  So today we're going to talk about how to teach technical topics to non-technical people.
[02:12.880 --> 02:20.300]  We're going to talk about some of the tricks that we've learned over the years to get past those like googly eyes that happen when you try and explain something that you're really excited about.
[02:20.440 --> 02:20.960]  It's a little nerdy.
[02:21.900 --> 02:26.660]  And how to help people get over their fears and maybe even get a little excited about technical stuff.
[02:26.660 --> 02:29.100]  So a little bit about my background.
[02:29.320 --> 02:31.040]  I've been a UNIX nerd for about 12 years.
[02:31.420 --> 02:37.140]  I started out transferring like audio recordings of like technical courses into distance learning products.
[02:37.300 --> 02:40.860]  And I didn't realize that I wasn't expected to learn the Sun OS system in the office.
[02:41.100 --> 02:41.880]  So, bim, bam, boom.
[02:42.060 --> 02:43.300]  Next thing I know I'm a UNIX system man.
[02:43.880 --> 02:48.500]  I work for the University of Pennsylvania where I'm also working on a Master of Environmental Studies.
[02:50.100 --> 02:54.120]  But the reason that I'm here has a lot to do with the Prometheus Radio Project.
[02:55.140 --> 03:03.340]  As a volunteer and a tech trainer over the years I've gotten to hack 802.11 links with these really big antennas to set up studio transmitter links with farm workers in Oregon.
[03:03.840 --> 03:08.180]  I've helped middle-aged women in South Carolina crimp their own Ethernet cables.
[03:08.720 --> 03:18.520]  I've worked with a community center in a ghetto of Nairobi, Kenya and watched their low-power radio station go back on the air after weeks of being down and seeing like the triumph inhalation that happens there.
[03:19.120 --> 03:26.620]  And I've worked with students and volunteers who went into a workshop not knowing like an eighth-inch cable for from a twist tie and coming out and like wiring up a mixer.
[03:26.820 --> 03:36.060]  So, I've been able to witness these like light bulb moments and watch the gears start to turn and see that magical moment when someone who's deathly afraid of technology starts to understand it.
[03:36.200 --> 03:38.080]  That like, hey, I get it.
[03:38.200 --> 03:39.560]  This isn't that hard.
[03:39.760 --> 03:41.280]  I wonder what else I can get my hands on.
[03:41.540 --> 03:46.340]  So, I'm excited to share what the kind of things that have worked and haven't worked over the years.
[03:47.900 --> 03:48.380]  Awesome.
[03:49.280 --> 03:54.780]  Y'all are going to have to forgive me because I came down with some kind of a cold the other day.
[03:54.940 --> 03:58.020]  And so, you'll just have to listen kind of closely.
[03:58.860 --> 03:59.880]  We call that sultry.
[04:00.480 --> 04:04.800]  And so, Prometheus was started about 12 years ago.
[04:05.620 --> 04:07.560]  So, we build radio stations.
[04:07.720 --> 04:11.800]  About half of our work is technical training and physically building radio stations.
[04:12.160 --> 04:19.200]  And about half is trying to change the laws that govern radio and actually make that process more clear to people too.
[04:19.440 --> 04:24.260]  How to affect government and how to change the rules by which this is all played.
[04:24.900 --> 04:29.780]  We actually started from the ashes of a pirate radio station that I was involved with called Radio Mutiny.
[04:31.260 --> 04:35.060]  There's a couple people around here that were involved in Radio Mutiny.
[04:35.280 --> 04:37.400]  It was a small West Philadelphia station.
[04:37.660 --> 04:43.420]  And basically, it came from a group of us who were activists who worked in different movements.
[04:43.920 --> 04:49.420]  In AIDS, in housing, in environmentalism, against war.
[04:51.000 --> 04:55.240]  But all of us kept on coming up against the same problem again and again.
[04:56.280 --> 04:59.900]  We knew that people cared about the issues that we were talking about.
[05:00.140 --> 05:03.500]  But there was no way that we could break into the mainstream media.
[05:04.040 --> 05:10.980]  And we started to realize that in fact, the media was owned by the very corporations in many cases that we were opposed to.
[05:11.680 --> 05:20.780]  And we figured out that there was no way that we were going to win that game when they owned the means through which most people learn about these things.
[05:20.780 --> 05:22.200]  So, we decided to start our own.
[05:22.400 --> 05:24.740]  None of us had ever been on the radio.
[05:24.880 --> 05:26.400]  None of us knew anything about radio.
[05:28.200 --> 05:33.580]  But, you know, we got this transmitter kit from somewhere and we tried to solder it together.
[05:33.800 --> 05:38.820]  And, you know, we solder it and it just sort of blew up and totally didn't work at all.
[05:39.140 --> 05:42.760]  And then we got another one and we blew that one up too.
[05:42.760 --> 05:52.540]  But eventually after a number of tries, we finally got this little working 20 watt transmitter that suddenly started broadcasting across Philadelphia.
[05:53.060 --> 06:05.120]  And then within a few weeks, we had 60 or 70 programmers coming on from all different social movements, all different styles of music that were never on the radio before.
[06:05.260 --> 06:07.920]  It was a really, really thrilling project for us.
[06:11.080 --> 06:15.140]  And strangely enough, you know, I mean, it was a pirate radio station.
[06:15.140 --> 06:22.200]  So, we could very well, you know, go to jail or get a $10,000 fine or get the equipment confiscated.
[06:23.200 --> 06:29.560]  We ran for about a year and a half and finally the FCC did kick down the door and take away the pyrotransmitter.
[06:29.560 --> 06:39.620]  But something really strange happened on the way to that, which was that actually the chairman of the FCC sort of changed his mind about pirate radio.
[06:40.240 --> 06:46.980]  And he started saying, before I leave office, I am going to make sure that there is a legal way for these people to do this.
[06:48.400 --> 06:57.520]  And so, Prometheus, we decided, well, when like, you know, someone that powerful changes their mind, you have to like sort of, someone's got to be there to hold them accountable.
[06:57.740 --> 07:07.220]  So, we started a legal organization with the goal of holding the FCC accountable and making the very most out of this sort of, this opportunity that was created.
[07:08.740 --> 07:24.040]  So, we've been building radio stations ever since, and the way that we most like to build radio stations is with what we call a radio barn racing, where we bring together about 150, 200 people for a weekend and we have 30 or 40 workshops about how to wire up a mixer,
[07:24.400 --> 07:30.360]  how to connect a phone patch, how to set up your station governance, how to do your fundraising.
[07:31.820 --> 07:37.900]  And everything starts out in boxes on Friday morning, and then by Sunday, it's got to just work.
[07:38.220 --> 07:45.340]  And the vast majority of people have no experience in radio, but by the end, everybody has helped to build this radio station.
[07:45.660 --> 07:47.660]  So, that's that.
[07:47.900 --> 07:50.460]  But we're not here to talk about that, actually.
[07:51.120 --> 07:59.740]  What I've noticed at HOPE conferences over the years is that there are lots of people, there are lots of people here that know a lot more about radio than I do, actually.
[07:59.740 --> 08:02.220]  So, what would the point of that be for me to talk about that?
[08:02.720 --> 08:04.800]  I'm a radio engineer, but I'm kind of a bad one.
[08:06.920 --> 08:26.540]  But, I feel safe in saying that we probably, we have a lot of nerds here who know a lot about a lot of things, and a lot of them may have experienced the same troubles that we've had over the years trying to get very non-technical people to learn and love technology the same way that we do.
[08:26.540 --> 08:31.480]  And so, we're, we just have a bunch of tips that we've generated over the years.
[08:31.640 --> 08:32.580]  Some of them are common sense.
[08:33.380 --> 08:35.120]  Some of them, you know, may be new to you.
[08:35.280 --> 08:37.240]  So, that's what we want to share with you.
[08:37.740 --> 08:39.160]  So, I want a quick show of hands.
[08:39.900 --> 08:48.420]  Who here has ever tried to share something really interesting to you about a technical topic, and they, people just looked at you like you are from f*cking Mars.
[08:50.140 --> 08:50.660]  Okay.
[08:50.940 --> 08:52.100]  Yeah, I'm kind of not surprised.
[08:52.620 --> 08:53.140]  Okay.
[08:54.240 --> 09:00.400]  Have you ever felt like just totally helpless trying to explain something like how to send an email to your grandmother?
[09:01.020 --> 09:07.780]  Like just totally disempowered, like totally out of control, like nothing I say can help this person?
[09:08.120 --> 09:08.480]  Anyone?
[09:09.680 --> 09:10.520]  Yeah, okay.
[09:11.400 --> 09:16.360]  Yeah, so, you know, funny you should mention grandmothers, because my tech nemesis is my mother.
[09:16.520 --> 09:19.900]  In this talk, we're going to talk a lot about like farm workers and independent journalists and activists.
[09:20.100 --> 09:21.700]  But, oh gosh, my mom.
[09:22.220 --> 09:28.940]  So, it's a little frustrating, but I kind of come to relish the challenge of like explaining to her the difference between a web browser and an ISP.
[09:30.760 --> 09:35.740]  So, some of the things I do with her, this is like immediately applicable to a lot of us.
[09:36.000 --> 09:38.340]  First, I keep the big picture really, really clear.
[09:38.560 --> 09:41.280]  Like we establish what it is that she's trying to do.
[09:41.460 --> 09:49.140]  She describes what she wants to do and what happens when she tries and like how it like, it just, it doesn't, it goes away.
[09:49.420 --> 09:57.960]  And so, she describes like, oh, okay, well, so, she doesn't need to know like the minutia of like how an MTA works, but she can describe her needs as a user.
[09:57.960 --> 09:59.860]  I want to send an email to all my siblings.
[10:00.120 --> 10:01.800]  I want to print with no wires.
[10:02.060 --> 10:04.700]  I want to scan a picture and send it to some people.
[10:04.880 --> 10:09.100]  So, we keep, we keep sight of the larger goal and keep connecting to it through the process.
[10:09.680 --> 10:11.420]  Next, I let her lead.
[10:11.560 --> 10:12.480]  She's not dumb.
[10:12.780 --> 10:14.000]  She's just smart in other ways.
[10:14.160 --> 10:14.900]  And this is key.
[10:15.080 --> 10:18.420]  If you can remember that people, people are smart.
[10:18.600 --> 10:22.660]  You just kind of have to figure out like how they can connect with what, what they want to learn.
[10:23.360 --> 10:25.360]  That'll really get you through a lot of the frustration.
[10:25.800 --> 10:28.600]  So, I explain enough to break down the problems.
[10:28.760 --> 10:32.540]  So, she kind of understands the lines between the, the tasks that she's trying to do.
[10:32.920 --> 10:36.120]  And I ask probing questions to see what she thinks we should do next.
[10:36.400 --> 10:39.360]  And you'd be surprised how easily people will pick up on that.
[10:39.480 --> 10:41.840]  If you can kind of like nudge them, okay, we're trying to do this.
[10:41.920 --> 10:42.900]  So, what do you think comes next?
[10:43.880 --> 10:46.360]  And that, and that way, she owns the process.
[10:46.580 --> 10:49.140]  When she goes to try and do it again, it's not going to be like this.
[10:49.220 --> 10:51.140]  Her memory isn't going to be like a whirlwind of clicks.
[10:51.320 --> 10:54.080]  It's going to be a logical process that she can think herself through again.
[10:54.380 --> 10:56.560]  And her attention for this has been really, really good.
[10:58.080 --> 11:02.860]  I use and abuse analogies, which is something we're going to go over a little bit more later on.
[11:02.980 --> 11:05.920]  But like, the wireless print server described it in terms of radio.
[11:06.220 --> 11:08.120]  So, the AP is the radio station.
[11:08.480 --> 11:11.920]  Her little wireless card sticking out of her laptop, that's the radio receiver.
[11:11.920 --> 11:14.820]  And she went so far as to get out, like, the freezer tape and the sharpie.
[11:14.940 --> 11:17.800]  And labeled, printer radio station, printer radio.
[11:18.360 --> 11:19.780]  And it worked for her really well.
[11:20.760 --> 11:23.240]  Last, I go very, very slowly.
[11:23.540 --> 11:27.460]  So slowly, in fact, it might even come off as condescending to someone who knows what they're doing.
[11:27.600 --> 11:30.260]  But it doesn't come across that way to her, fortunately.
[11:31.260 --> 11:33.320]  And it's not, certainly it's not meant that way.
[11:33.420 --> 11:39.880]  But it's really important to go slowly enough that you can see that light bulb come on after every, like, logical chunk.
[11:39.880 --> 11:45.680]  So you don't move on until you can see that recognition that, okay, now I understand that I own this part of the process.
[11:45.880 --> 11:46.620]  And then you can move on.
[11:48.120 --> 11:49.160]  What a sweet daughter.
[11:50.940 --> 11:51.720]  That's what you think.
[11:52.840 --> 11:53.300]  Okay.
[11:53.920 --> 12:01.400]  So, when we started working with farm workers, a lot of them talked about this thing called popular education.
[12:01.700 --> 12:04.000]  And I didn't know what it was, so I looked it up.
[12:04.180 --> 12:13.000]  It turns out to be this educational philosophy and a set of techniques around education developed by a Brazilian educator named Paulo Freire.
[12:13.000 --> 12:19.900]  And I found this quote on the Internet that I really love for a number of reasons.
[12:20.620 --> 12:21.920]  So, here we go.
[12:22.320 --> 12:32.240]  For education, Freire implies a dialogic exchange between teachers and students where both learn, both question, both reflect, and both participate in meaning making.
[12:32.900 --> 12:40.800]  Concretely, this pedagogy begins with a teacher mingling among the community, asking questions of the people, and gathering a list of words used in their daily lives.
[12:41.160 --> 12:52.480]  The teacher was to begin to understand the social reality of the people and develop a list of, quote, generative words and themes which could lead to discussion in classes or cultural circles.
[12:52.480 --> 13:03.300]  By making words or literacy relevant to the lives of people, the process of conscientization could begin in which the social construction of reality might be critically examined.
[13:04.140 --> 13:12.340]  The year 1962 saw the first experiments in Freire's method when 300 farm workers were taught to read and write in just 45 days.
[13:12.340 --> 13:32.100]  Now, I think that this is just so f*cking funny that a topic as grassroots as, you know, teaching farm workers to read has an incredible jargon of its own that is impenetrable.
[13:32.240 --> 13:36.080]  Like words like conscientiousization and dialogic exchange.
[13:37.260 --> 13:39.180]  So that's cool in and of itself.
[13:39.380 --> 13:44.640]  Just about every field of human endeavor has like, just like impenetrable technical words.
[13:45.360 --> 13:56.720]  But the other thing that I liked about it was this idea of the education going two ways and the need for relevance.
[13:57.560 --> 14:10.880]  And so we were thinking about how we could apply this to teaching radio and unfortunately there were no generative words like 18-decibel Yagi or electromagnetism around in the lives of the people we were working with.
[14:11.220 --> 14:18.420]  But we definitely liked to incorporate the idea that everyone was learning and everyone was teaching in this circumstance.
[14:19.840 --> 14:24.000]  Okay, so here's our list of some things.
[14:24.680 --> 14:29.360]  One thing that we try really hard to do is to define some key terms early.
[14:29.360 --> 14:41.780]  There is nothing stupider than teaching for a whole hour only to realize that half the people do not know what a watt is after you've been talking about milliwatts and kilowatts and, you know, decawatts and whatever.
[14:43.460 --> 14:53.300]  And whenever I come across one of these words that people have trouble with, I try to go back to its root in things that people usually experience.
[14:53.300 --> 14:55.500]  It's like frequency is a good one.
[14:57.220 --> 15:03.140]  A lot of people say, oh, so I want to build a low-frequency radio station here.
[15:03.800 --> 15:08.620]  And, you know, one response is like smack, you know, it's a low-power radio station.
[15:10.040 --> 15:16.840]  But it's actually helpful when you look at what is, you know, where these words come from and how they relate.
[15:16.840 --> 15:19.520]  So with frequency, I take two approaches.
[15:19.760 --> 15:21.840]  Well, one is like, what is frequency?
[15:22.540 --> 15:23.660]  How would you use it?
[15:23.720 --> 15:26.340]  And if we weren't talking about radio, how would you use that?
[15:26.540 --> 15:32.020]  You know, the frequency at which I pick my nose like three times per hour, you know, or whatever.
[15:33.060 --> 15:37.800]  And radio just happens to be something that happens much more frequently than picking my nose.
[15:38.320 --> 15:40.280]  You know, millions of cycles per second.
[15:40.600 --> 15:41.080]  Yeah.
[15:42.660 --> 15:45.980]  And, but, okay, so that's what frequency is.
[15:46.340 --> 15:48.020]  But what do we actually use it for?
[15:48.140 --> 15:49.180]  It's something totally different.
[15:49.540 --> 15:53.380]  We actually use frequency to distinguish between different channels.
[15:53.560 --> 15:58.880]  So a frequency is really more like a name for a station that you're using.
[15:59.080 --> 16:12.700]  So if you go back to, like, where people might know something from, and also, but then talk really practically about, about what they're going to use it for, that's, that's really helpful.
[16:15.800 --> 16:19.180]  So, next thing we have on our list is to use an abuse metaphor.
[16:19.480 --> 16:23.820]  And there are a couple of metaphors and analogies that Petrie uses that I really enjoy.
[16:24.040 --> 16:26.240]  Do you want, do you want to do the transistor or do you want to skip that one?
[16:26.380 --> 16:27.900]  Why don't you start with the XLR?
[16:27.900 --> 16:28.960]  The XLR, oh God.
[16:28.960 --> 16:36.100]  So, I cannot- I could never remember for the life of me how to wire up an XLR cable.
[16:37.040 --> 16:40.480]  The ground, the hot and the cold, so the one, two and three on the adapter thingy.
[16:40.700 --> 16:43.080]  So I came up with this just stupid memory aid.
[16:43.720 --> 16:47.660]  So, you know, if you're, if you're solitary, if you're one, your ground is, the one goes to the ground.
[16:47.820 --> 16:51.420]  And if, if there's two of you, you know, like two is company and you're hot, right?
[16:51.580 --> 16:56.780]  So, so the hot wire goes to the two and then, you know, three, three is a crowd.
[16:56.960 --> 16:58.540]  So once you have a third, you've gone cold.
[16:58.540 --> 17:17.240]  So, that was the only way I could remember this thing, and I passed it on to a friend of mine in Western Kenya, actually, and he took it and put this artistic flourish on it and started out with, like, a wise man once said, and it kind of, like, every iteration of this retelling of this memory aid,
[17:17.260 --> 17:23.100]  it got, like, more and more artistic and beautiful until it was appreciably less stupid than how I had started with it.
[17:24.180 --> 17:30.820]  There's another one, when you're soldering, you want to put, like, the heat, so you apply the heat, then the solder, take the solder away and take away the heat.
[17:31.080 --> 17:37.220]  So, our technical director, Andy Gunn, in Kenya, came up with, you know, he kind of was doing it almost as a dance.
[17:37.400 --> 17:43.480]  So, during the whole trip to Kenya, he was going, you know, heat, solder, solder, heat, heat, solder, solder, heat.
[17:43.620 --> 17:52.420]  And people clung to this so well that by the end of the trip, our friends there had a rap about this in the local Nairobi Swahili called Shang.
[17:52.420 --> 17:54.900]  It was f*cking amazing, gorgeous.
[17:55.260 --> 17:58.340]  So, you know, be stupid, use analogies.
[17:59.060 --> 18:02.600]  Yeah, yeah, it doesn't hurt to, like, just make up a stupid story, too.
[18:02.880 --> 18:18.880]  Like, if I'm trying to explain the way that a transistor acts as an amplifier, I'll just, like, say something like, okay, like, let's say that you have a bunch of, like, corporate executives that you want to smash on the head, and you happen to have the services of a 75-foot giant,
[18:19.160 --> 18:27.360]  but unfortunately the giant is blind and deaf, and so doesn't know when to use his giant club to smash these dudes.
[18:27.360 --> 18:49.560]  And so, what you can do is you can put a little elf on his shoulder who can hear, and then you just send a little signal over to the elf, and the elf, like, pulls on the ear of the giant, and then Og, you know, just goes, you know, and so that is the effect of a transistor,
[18:50.380 --> 18:55.220]  like, letting, you know, taking very small signals and amplifying and making them much larger.
[18:55.880 --> 19:07.280]  And, you know, you just try... I could talk about collectors and emitters and all that sort of thing, but frankly, I forget that whenever I try to talk about it, so...
[19:07.280 --> 19:14.120]  So, this theme of, like, it's okay to be campy, segues into our next point, which is put yourself at people's mercy.
[19:14.120 --> 19:15.320]  Make mistakes.
[19:15.660 --> 19:16.820]  Teach in a different language.
[19:18.020 --> 19:21.320]  Tell people how you figure things out when you don't know what the hell you're doing.
[19:21.900 --> 19:23.320]  Admit it when you don't know something.
[19:23.580 --> 19:32.100]  Make it clear that you're no smarter than the people that you're teaching, and do things that put yourself at people's mercy, so that they...
[19:32.100 --> 19:34.160]  It's a source of respect.
[19:34.420 --> 19:35.240]  It's a source of humor.
[19:35.860 --> 19:37.080]  Lots of good things can happen.
[19:37.660 --> 19:44.380]  So, you want to get across that you happen to know maybe this one thing, but they know tons of stuff, and you want to learn from them as well.
[19:44.820 --> 19:46.680]  When you do that, a couple things happen.
[19:46.840 --> 19:54.820]  Not only do you, like, actually sincerely edify the person that you're teaching, but you also start to break down this teacher-student hierarchy.
[19:55.280 --> 20:02.020]  You kind of break down this authority figure versus observer, and you eliminate that sense of, like, ooh, you're sitting up there with your fancy soldering iron.
[20:02.140 --> 20:03.340]  Your little Debian install.
[20:03.680 --> 20:04.680]  It's Fedora 9.
[20:04.780 --> 20:05.500]  It won't work up there.
[20:06.420 --> 20:23.300]  And so, you add to the sense of, like, collaborative learning, and you don't... you get to lead that person to the feeling that they're the expert, and that if they walk out of a seminar or workshop or whatever feeling like they totally own this situation,
[20:23.360 --> 20:29.400]  and you're just, like, some schmuck who sort of pointed a couple things out to them, then that's the epic win.
[20:29.560 --> 20:31.300]  When you look like an idiot, that's the win.
[20:32.340 --> 20:33.800]  Yeah, and also it's good.
[20:34.260 --> 20:39.160]  I always insist on, like, learning, like, the numbers and the colors and that sort of thing.
[20:39.480 --> 20:49.900]  And then when I screw up, it's, like, it makes it a little bit more even, like, because, okay, they forgot, you know, that it's a MRF 240, and I forgot the name for the color blue.
[20:50.860 --> 20:54.580]  Just sort of creates an opportunity to even the score a little bit.
[20:56.900 --> 20:59.080]  Okay, another teaching trick.
[20:59.340 --> 21:03.020]  Do not overengage a single individual.
[21:03.960 --> 21:12.800]  Whenever I do, like, a class or something, there's always some dude in the third row that knows, like, way more.
[21:13.020 --> 21:15.260]  Way, way more than everyone else in the group.
[21:15.420 --> 21:24.940]  And he wants to start talking about, like, what happens if you do a co-location of the HD radio signals with the cellular panel antennas and blah, blah, blah, blah.
[21:25.100 --> 21:27.360]  And you gotta be just, wait, hold on, dude.
[21:28.060 --> 21:35.880]  I'm totally taking you out for a beer later to talk about this, but we cannot go there in this class because, you know, this isn't between you and I.
[21:36.000 --> 21:38.700]  This is, you know, this is a group learning experience.
[21:38.700 --> 21:45.400]  And you just gotta not necessarily, like, engage that and then, like, have everybody else tune out.
[21:45.560 --> 21:47.440]  Very, very important to be assertive.
[21:47.560 --> 21:54.800]  Because when you are trying to communicate something to a large group, you can't just, like, take the one person.
[21:56.120 --> 22:02.160]  Similarly, sort of on the flip side of that, it's important not to engage an individual's fear.
[22:02.360 --> 22:09.560]  So there's a lot of times there are people who are coming to workshops who are coming in, like, kind of scared to touch the technology.
[22:10.140 --> 22:13.940]  There's that person in every workshop who's sort of timid and sort of quiet off to the side.
[22:14.640 --> 22:15.700]  Engage that person.
[22:15.960 --> 22:18.360]  Get that person to touch the technology.
[22:18.360 --> 22:21.700]  Get that person engaged in the process.
[22:22.100 --> 22:23.660]  Be sympathetic to their wariness.
[22:23.940 --> 22:25.440]  Understand where their worry is coming from.
[22:25.880 --> 22:29.840]  And respect, especially, respect that they came to the space to try and get over that.
[22:30.100 --> 22:31.980]  But don't let them wallow.
[22:32.180 --> 22:35.600]  If they get stuck, just kind of give them a firm little nudge to the next step.
[22:35.960 --> 22:37.020]  Don't do it for them.
[22:37.140 --> 22:38.800]  Whatever the task is, don't do it for them.
[22:38.880 --> 22:41.180]  But acknowledge that it looks kind of complicated on the surface.
[22:41.560 --> 22:43.160]  But keep them focused on the end goal.
[22:43.160 --> 22:49.520]  So that by the end of the workshop, they can understand how awesome it feels to, like, figure this thing out and get it done.
[22:52.740 --> 22:56.980]  The next thing... So...
[22:59.040 --> 23:00.820]  It's... This is so difficult.
[23:01.520 --> 23:03.520]  Some of us have to learn to shut up.
[23:03.820 --> 23:06.580]  It's okay to, like, leave some space.
[23:07.800 --> 23:10.800]  We, as geeks, we get really excited about the things that we're interested in.
[23:10.960 --> 23:12.480]  We want to talk about every aspect of it.
[23:12.540 --> 23:13.360]  We talk really fast.
[23:13.360 --> 23:15.420]  We don't stop talking because everything is just so interesting.
[23:15.460 --> 23:20.800]  But we need to learn to embrace the awkward silence.
[23:21.100 --> 23:26.100]  So it's okay to, like, put a question out there and just sort of, like, let it hang until it feels uncomfortable.
[23:26.400 --> 23:28.640]  Because at some point, somebody is going to venture a guess.
[23:29.120 --> 23:33.100]  I find that even quiet people talk under two conditions.
[23:33.280 --> 23:35.600]  When they care enough and when there's space to speak.
[23:36.220 --> 23:41.360]  And when you leave that space, you leave space for unexpected learning and even leadership starts to pop up.
[23:41.640 --> 23:45.160]  If you fill in every silence, that not everyone is...
[23:45.160 --> 23:48.900]  If there's... Not everyone is motivated to compete for the space to speak.
[23:49.060 --> 23:52.880]  So if you fill in all these silences, you might miss a great question or a brilliant insight.
[23:53.120 --> 23:57.920]  And so it's important to try not to squash those opportunities because you're self-conscious about silence.
[23:57.920 --> 24:00.920]  You want to engender the genius of the people around you.
[24:01.280 --> 24:06.420]  And in that way, you also bolster the strengths of participatory learning.
[24:06.760 --> 24:09.180]  So, you know, it's okay to be quiet sometimes.
[24:10.160 --> 24:11.080]  Yup, yup.
[24:11.980 --> 24:12.720]  Okay, another one.
[24:12.820 --> 24:14.060]  Very common for nerds.
[24:14.520 --> 24:19.540]  Very common for nerds to have the fallacy of being way more accurate than necessary.
[24:20.020 --> 24:21.380]  This isn't science.
[24:21.700 --> 24:22.960]  It's technical education.
[24:23.300 --> 24:27.060]  So don't say 4.57 times 10 to the 23rd.
[24:27.060 --> 24:28.560]  But for Christ's sake, just say a zillion.
[24:29.640 --> 24:31.540]  Because, you know, that's what people need to know.
[24:31.660 --> 24:32.260]  Is it big?
[24:32.340 --> 24:33.000]  Is it small?
[24:33.220 --> 24:35.320]  Is it... You know, that's key.
[24:37.180 --> 24:42.740]  Another one, sort of similar to that, is it doesn't hurt to act sometimes.
[24:42.920 --> 24:47.460]  I had this professor once who was kind of an older guy.
[24:47.460 --> 24:54.260]  And he was teaching, you know, some basic electrical physics.
[24:54.540 --> 24:58.580]  And he would be like, okay, so we've got a bunch of quantities here.
[24:58.660 --> 24:59.440]  We've got power.
[24:59.580 --> 25:00.480]  We've got current.
[25:00.720 --> 25:02.220]  We've got resistance.
[25:02.220 --> 25:06.580]  And so which formula do you think will fit this?
[25:06.840 --> 25:13.220]  And he was like, well, we could use the P equals I squared.
[25:15.540 --> 25:21.100]  And so everyone in the class, our minds are all like, P equals I squared?
[25:21.380 --> 25:23.620]  R for f*ck's sake, you f*cking old coot.
[25:23.620 --> 25:28.920]  I mean, I can't believe, you know, so like, but he was making our minds jump ahead of what he was saying.
[25:29.100 --> 25:35.780]  And I caught him kind of like acting a little bit more doddering than he really was sometimes.
[25:36.120 --> 25:37.960]  So it's kind of a good trick.
[25:38.120 --> 25:40.100]  Let people like finish your sentences.
[25:40.460 --> 25:46.720]  And, you know, it's very often the learning goes deeper when they do that.
[25:48.580 --> 25:54.480]  Another like participatory learning, learning trick is there's no replacement for hands-on stuff.
[25:54.600 --> 25:57.700]  You know, when you can touch something and you can look at it and kind of pull it apart.
[25:58.220 --> 26:00.100]  There's, there's nothing, there's nothing that beats that.
[26:00.280 --> 26:02.800]  And it also engenders this sense of ownership of the project.
[26:03.040 --> 26:04.180]  I wired that compressor.
[26:04.540 --> 26:06.040]  This, this radio station is mine.
[26:06.280 --> 26:08.680]  I can, you know, this, this, this is my community resource.
[26:08.780 --> 26:09.660]  I can, I can use it.
[26:10.200 --> 26:15.480]  There's nothing like getting like all up in your technology to understand it, to make that link between the theoretical and the tangible.
[26:16.340 --> 26:18.620]  And kinesthetic learning is something that people talk about.
[26:19.180 --> 26:22.560]  When, and when you can touch something, you can start to dispel the fear about it.
[26:23.260 --> 26:27.900]  The worst thing ever is like, is this feeling of like, if you touch the technology, it'll break.
[26:28.520 --> 26:32.660]  We all have days like that, but the trick is to pretend that it never happens.
[26:32.920 --> 26:41.640]  You're trying to dispel the, you know, the misconception that the Arduino board doesn't work because Mercury's in retrograde or the transmitter won't tune because there's sunspots.
[26:42.340 --> 26:50.000]  And the best way to try and get past that is to get people like, like get their hands in the transmitter, get their hands in the sides and in the guts of the computer.
[26:50.180 --> 26:54.160]  Have your niece and nephew rewire a SATA, a SATA disc inside the, inside the computer.
[26:55.160 --> 26:58.260]  I do this, this workshop called Intro to Audio.
[26:58.860 --> 27:01.580]  And the opener for that class has been particularly successful.
[27:01.840 --> 27:08.620]  We start with a pile of cables and connectors and everyone in the class picks one up, takes it back to their chair and we go around the room and identify them.
[27:08.620 --> 27:11.860]  We start just by kind of like looking at them, like how big is it?
[27:12.000 --> 27:12.380]  Where was it?
[27:12.460 --> 27:12.980]  Where was it?
[27:13.040 --> 27:14.660]  What slot in the mixture does it fit in?
[27:14.800 --> 27:15.460]  Does it have stripes?
[27:15.620 --> 27:15.940]  How many?
[27:17.220 --> 27:25.540]  And over the course of that, we discover what each one does, where it fits, why it does what it does, and then we give it a name.
[27:26.380 --> 27:34.700]  When we start out, people kind of struggle with it, but by the end, people are anticipating each other's answers, they're helping each other out, and I don't have to give any input at all.
[27:34.920 --> 27:36.520]  So it works really, really well.
[27:39.680 --> 27:42.900]  Another one, this is a story I read recently.
[27:44.960 --> 27:48.060]  Another person that does development work.
[27:50.760 --> 27:53.920]  And it's about how defining something often kills it.
[27:54.620 --> 28:06.740]  What he did was, and I wish I could remember his name, but he taught integrated pest management to farmers in developing nations.
[28:07.240 --> 28:17.560]  And it was his job to basically like educate these people about how to use different techniques that weren't so dependent on pesticides.
[28:18.020 --> 28:24.520]  And, you know, they were very accustomed to like people coming in with like lots of charts and like all kinds of things.
[28:25.520 --> 28:27.780]  But he tried to take a different approach.
[28:27.920 --> 28:31.860]  And this story helped me understand what he was trying to do a lot.
[28:32.900 --> 28:38.320]  Now, if someone like, if someone, he said, if someone asks you, what's this bug?
[28:38.680 --> 28:46.520]  I mean, one thing you could do is you could say, oh, it's Pithocanthropus, Insectus, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[28:47.280 --> 28:49.680]  Well, and that's the worst possible answer.
[28:50.260 --> 28:59.100]  Because just like giving it a name in Latin is about the most useless thing that you could do with that piece of curiosity from the person.
[29:00.500 --> 29:05.460]  It establishes that you have a great memory and that they didn't know it and that you did.
[29:05.740 --> 29:06.960]  And hooray for you.
[29:08.120 --> 29:10.920]  But what he would do instead is like, I don't know.
[29:11.740 --> 29:13.060]  Well, let's take a look at it.
[29:13.180 --> 29:14.440]  You know, how many legs does it have?
[29:14.440 --> 29:16.260]  Where does it seem to be sitting?
[29:16.480 --> 29:20.300]  Is it one of the bugs that seems to be eating your plants?
[29:20.880 --> 29:24.360]  Is it one of the bugs that seems to be eating one of the bugs that's eating your plants?
[29:25.980 --> 29:27.980]  Like, what's in this bug for us?
[29:28.820 --> 29:30.300]  And just sort of taking through...
[29:30.300 --> 29:39.120]  And yeah, eventually, you know, after quite a bit of observation and thought, oh, okay, well, you know, let's look in the guide and see if we can tell which one it is.
[29:39.460 --> 29:41.740]  And then maybe you get to the name.
[29:43.880 --> 29:47.700]  But, you know, the real question is, you know, are you there to show off?
[29:47.820 --> 30:03.680]  Or are you there to like actually encourage that scientific mindset, that inquisitive, that exploration, that they can actually... I mean, it does little good to like teach a set of facts to people.
[30:03.900 --> 30:13.120]  But if you can share your approach of inquisitiveness and how to learn, that is actually much, much more valuable.
[30:16.260 --> 30:17.260]  So where are we at?
[30:17.620 --> 30:17.720]  Oh.
[30:17.920 --> 30:19.540]  We're at the uncomfortable one.
[30:19.800 --> 30:20.420]  Oh, yeah.
[30:20.720 --> 30:21.100]  Okay.
[30:22.300 --> 30:23.760]  Gender and race matter.
[30:25.260 --> 30:31.260]  Now, I got to say, some people talk about these issues and they are super f*king annoying.
[30:31.760 --> 30:35.100]  They're just like self-righteous and like really bothersome.
[30:35.300 --> 30:37.580]  And yeah, they drive me crazy too.
[30:37.840 --> 30:55.700]  However, it is a shame because if you look at the facts underneath, you will realize like how important and how it makes a lot of otherwise incomprehensible social situations much easier to understand and actually improve.
[30:55.960 --> 31:05.240]  I mean, if you look around at this room, what you're seeing is people who have been encouraged in technology.
[31:06.980 --> 31:13.560]  It's very different from if you just look out on the street of New York right outside, you know, 18 floors below.
[31:14.180 --> 31:15.900]  It's a very different set of people.
[31:15.900 --> 31:20.960]  Now, what the people in this room share is have education.
[31:21.240 --> 31:28.320]  Now, however dumb ass your teachers were and however irritating your education was, you know, you know, had some educational opportunities.
[31:29.340 --> 31:32.940]  Relatively supportive families, even though everyone's family is crazy.
[31:34.840 --> 31:36.500]  And some people's families are ad hoc.
[31:37.840 --> 31:41.720]  And probably there was enough money around to purchase gadgets.
[31:42.240 --> 31:49.120]  And probably you had parents that didn't smack you when you took apart the only telephone in the house and then nothing was there.
[31:49.480 --> 31:52.480]  Actually, when you took apart the telephone, they were like, oh, that's cute, you know.
[31:54.280 --> 31:56.900]  And you're going to make a great engineer one of these days.
[31:58.300 --> 32:01.720]  So what these things together add up to is what's called privilege.
[32:02.360 --> 32:04.700]  Now, privilege is not necessarily a bad thing.
[32:05.740 --> 32:07.960]  I think of there as being two kinds of privilege.
[32:08.340 --> 32:10.840]  One is the kind of privilege that nobody should have.
[32:11.020 --> 32:15.940]  A servant with a big fan to stand around and fan air past you.
[32:16.280 --> 32:18.620]  A closet with 2,000 pairs of shoes.
[32:19.160 --> 32:20.000]  Those are privileges.
[32:20.180 --> 32:22.180]  Those are the motherf*ckers we're after, you know, whatever.
[32:23.360 --> 32:28.120]  There is the other kind of privilege is things that should be a right for everybody.
[32:28.860 --> 32:32.860]  Education, food on the table, health care, equal pay for equal work.
[32:33.720 --> 32:37.460]  But in this society, some people have these things and some people do not.
[32:38.040 --> 32:43.540]  And race and gender, statistically speaking, can meaningfully predict whether people have a lot of these things and whether or not.
[32:43.720 --> 32:48.700]  Not individually, but statistically, you know, it's actually very, very meaningful.
[32:48.700 --> 32:53.560]  Now, your privilege is not your fault.
[32:53.560 --> 33:03.160]  It has to do with the social structures around, but it's not your fault, but it's your responsibility to deal with it.
[33:03.160 --> 33:06.840]  There's no point in feeling guilty about having privileges that everyone should have.
[33:09.000 --> 33:14.880]  But what you have to do is you have to notice when it's there and work to share what you have and not hoard it.
[33:15.020 --> 33:17.760]  When you hoard it, then you become, like, really a part of the problem.
[33:19.020 --> 33:33.120]  It's also important to realize that whether it's this incredibly unearned privilege or whether it's not, it often is experienced by people that don't have it the same way.
[33:35.480 --> 33:41.160]  And a very funny thing about privilege is that it's very often totally invisible to the people that have it.
[33:44.940 --> 33:51.960]  And, you know, there's nothing more infuriating, you know, like, you're walking down the street with your friend, your friend has a lot more money than you, like, you want something to eat.
[33:52.800 --> 33:55.100]  They look in a restaurant and they're like, hey, let's go there.
[33:55.340 --> 33:58.180]  And you're like, shit, a sandwich costs $25.
[33:58.360 --> 34:01.000]  I was thinking, like, a slice of pizza or something.
[34:03.100 --> 34:08.820]  And you just want to smack their ass, you know, because, like, what the f*ck are they thinking, you know?
[34:10.460 --> 34:19.320]  And it's not that they were, like, trying to be mean to you or make you feel bad about yourself or something, but that's how you experience it.
[34:19.480 --> 34:20.720]  And it's not just money.
[34:20.980 --> 34:22.920]  The same goes for education and knowledge.
[34:22.920 --> 34:34.140]  It's not really socially common for people to talk down to others about money, but it's very common for people to treat each other like they're stupid because they don't have some level of technical skill that others do.
[34:34.140 --> 34:43.860]  And so it's really important, like, you know, to think about these things and think about those dynamics when you're trying to work.
[34:45.300 --> 34:54.080]  One other thing that we always do when we're putting together events, we try our very best to balance the panels.
[34:54.880 --> 34:59.740]  If it's a technical topic, we try very hard to have as many women on there as men.
[35:00.380 --> 35:07.040]  We try to have an appropriate mix of different races to the town that we're in.
[35:09.480 --> 35:27.220]  And it's not always easy because, you know, you have to, like, look a little further, you have to look a little harder, but it's work that's very worthwhile in doing because it breaks up the myth that, like, you know, you might get on TV that, like, you know,
[35:27.820 --> 35:33.740]  like, you know, technical people are only, like, white guys in, like, white coats or something like that.
[35:34.380 --> 35:41.600]  We don't always... another thing is we don't necessarily go for the person that has absolutely the most knowledge.
[35:41.600 --> 35:48.480]  We think about whether they have the communication skills and whether they can connect with the audience that they're working with.
[35:49.840 --> 35:54.640]  And, you know, sometimes some people know so much about a subject that they can't even be effective teachers.
[35:54.940 --> 36:06.000]  And so we really, like, you know, think through a lot when we're planning how the race and gender, how the privilege, how all those things are going to play out.
[36:06.000 --> 36:19.240]  And, you know, when you do that, things that otherwise look, like, really confusing or puzzling, they actually... it's like a veil's been taken off.
[36:19.240 --> 36:21.620]  And all of a sudden you're, like, actually, like, oh, well, wait a second.
[36:21.800 --> 36:23.420]  It's actually a very simple problem.
[36:23.660 --> 36:25.620]  It's, like, it's how people communicate.
[36:25.800 --> 36:27.800]  It's how people are used to seeing things, so.
[36:28.900 --> 36:35.840]  So why is the white dude talking about gender and race when the woman who's kind of a little brown now that it's July is kind of sitting back?
[36:35.840 --> 36:39.320]  We actually talked about that and who was going to take this point.
[36:39.420 --> 36:44.780]  And we decided that I would not do it for some very specific reasons that I'm going to point out.
[36:44.980 --> 37:02.080]  And so it starts out with the fact that, honestly, and I don't know, maybe some of the ladies in the room can relate to this, but just by virtue of being the owner and operator of a pair of boobs for my life, much less a woman in the computer field, I've been teaching gender 101 my entire life.
[37:02.260 --> 37:03.240]  And I'm tired.
[37:03.240 --> 37:13.600]  So I'm happy to, like, explain and clarify things, but truthfully, when men teach each other about how to address their own sexism, the message comes across much more easily and much more effectively.
[37:14.060 --> 37:23.080]  Similarly, it's not the job of a Pakistani-British person or a Guatemalan immigrant or an African-American citizen to teach me how to treat them with fairness and respect.
[37:23.320 --> 37:32.100]  It's up to people with privilege to understand how it works and try and share it as much as we can with people who deserve it just as much, but don't have it for some nonsense reason.
[37:32.440 --> 37:44.400]  And so if we want to be stewards of our own community, if we as a community don't want to be jerks, then it's up to us to learn the pitfalls that can sometimes make, like, total assholes out of people who are otherwise very well-meaning.
[37:45.200 --> 37:46.500]  So that's the spiel.
[37:46.820 --> 37:46.920]  Done.
[37:49.220 --> 37:50.340]  Well, not done, done.
[37:50.620 --> 37:52.060]  Done with the uncomfortable part.
[37:52.160 --> 37:53.920]  Now we get back to the fun part.
[37:54.160 --> 38:00.840]  So the next popular education tip that we have is don't let the techies touch the tools.
[38:01.080 --> 38:07.020]  Because the techies, when they get, you know, we like stuff, we like to play with toys and whatever.
[38:08.760 --> 38:15.660]  But if you let the technical people do all the stuff with the tools, then you kind of, they kind of take it and run with it.
[38:15.760 --> 38:17.020]  And you really don't want that to happen.
[38:18.760 --> 38:27.740]  So, yeah, so just kind of, like, have them play, you know, like that game where someone's, like, teaching someone else how to make peanut butter and jelly.
[38:28.000 --> 38:33.240]  So, like, you have to, like, give instructions to the person, like, okay, open up the jar, now take out the knife.
[38:33.240 --> 38:38.620]  So if you can get your technical people to do that with your workshop attendees, then you cross two boundaries.
[38:38.800 --> 38:42.180]  You get the technical person to understand what's difficult about using the tools.
[38:42.480 --> 38:45.760]  And the person who's participating gets to actually touch it.
[38:46.400 --> 38:49.780]  And men don't take the tools out of women's hands.
[38:50.200 --> 38:51.640]  This happens all the time.
[38:52.040 --> 39:06.280]  It's astounding to, you know, to be watching a technical workshop or whatever and come out of it and talk to some women who, you know, thought, or, like, yeah, thought it was going pretty well, whatever, and then, like, the engineer dude came over and just,
[39:06.340 --> 39:08.660]  like, grabbed the soldering iron out of my hand and did it.
[39:08.760 --> 39:10.340]  And, like, I guess I was doing it wrong.
[39:11.280 --> 39:11.960]  Epic fail.
[39:12.280 --> 39:13.240]  Don't do it.
[39:13.780 --> 39:15.040]  Don't do it.
[39:15.380 --> 39:18.580]  And if you see someone else doing it, just slap them.
[39:18.760 --> 39:19.360]  It's okay.
[39:19.800 --> 39:21.040]  It's okay to slap them.
[39:21.040 --> 39:22.480]  Number one complaint.
[39:22.620 --> 39:24.240]  Number one complaint at barn racing.
[39:24.640 --> 39:26.260]  Like, I hear it five times.
[39:26.520 --> 39:34.580]  Like, I'm always talking to some woman that was like, I was doing this thing, and then all of a sudden, like, this guy just was like, no, no, no, no, no, and grabbed the screwdriver.
[39:34.840 --> 39:35.840]  And, like, yeah.
[39:36.060 --> 39:36.680]  Oh, man.
[39:36.820 --> 39:40.000]  It was... And they're like, shit, I just felt like shit.
[39:40.140 --> 39:42.480]  And, like, I didn't... No, I'm not going to do this anymore.
[39:43.020 --> 39:47.440]  And so, just, look, I do it all the time.
[39:47.620 --> 39:49.480]  And I have to, like, stop myself.
[39:50.100 --> 39:53.960]  And so, just, like, doesn't mean you're an evil person.
[39:54.180 --> 39:55.040]  But, like, think.
[39:55.260 --> 39:56.320]  Just think about it.
[39:56.460 --> 39:56.760]  You know?
[39:56.960 --> 39:58.760]  About how it feels.
[39:59.400 --> 40:08.640]  And think about when you're trying to learn something, whether you're really going to learn it if someone else just takes it away and does it for you.
[40:11.100 --> 40:13.160]  So, okay, here's another one.
[40:14.320 --> 40:21.200]  Sometimes the greatest learning moments happen when you are totally out of control and things fall apart.
[40:22.940 --> 40:25.240]  For about ten years, I worked as a carpenter.
[40:25.700 --> 40:40.060]  And in the very beginning, when I was a carpenter's helper, when my boss, when his plans were totally, totally working, I was just standing there all day banging nails, bang another nail, bang another nail, all day long.
[40:41.740 --> 40:43.680]  So, that was when he was happy.
[40:44.860 --> 40:48.780]  But I was learning absolutely nothing except for banging more and more nails.
[40:49.060 --> 40:51.860]  But when did I really learn how to become a carpenter?
[40:52.220 --> 40:56.740]  It was when my boss, when all his plans went to shit.
[40:57.180 --> 41:08.040]  And, you know, when all of a sudden we discovered that, like, you know, the beam that we were planning on building this wall off of actually had been eaten away by termites.
[41:08.160 --> 41:09.580]  And he's like, ah, f*ck.
[41:09.800 --> 41:13.500]  And then we crawl under the building and we start sawing off parts of it.
[41:13.580 --> 41:16.080]  And he's like, oh my god, and I gotta get this and I gotta get that.
[41:16.080 --> 41:20.760]  And then all of his plans and his thought processes became transparent to me.
[41:20.900 --> 41:23.680]  And I was like, oh, that's what you do if that.
[41:23.920 --> 41:25.600]  And watching him improvise.
[41:26.280 --> 41:34.480]  So, watching him improvise was where I actually understood what it would be, not to just be a nail banger, but to be a carpenter.
[41:34.740 --> 41:42.040]  And so, for that reason, I really, I don't over plan.
[41:42.920 --> 41:49.280]  There's one way to, like, look at the task of having 150 volunteers build a radio station over the weekend.
[41:49.520 --> 41:54.520]  And you could think of it like, like you're a symphony orchestra conductor.
[41:55.280 --> 41:57.240]  Like, here come the violins.
[41:57.260 --> 42:01.560]  And that's when, like, all the, you know, all the cables get installed.
[42:01.760 --> 42:03.400]  And here come the tubas.
[42:03.400 --> 42:06.320]  And that's when, you know, the tower goes up.
[42:06.380 --> 42:08.580]  And you're just like this great conductor.
[42:09.960 --> 42:12.820]  I don't plan these radio station events like that.
[42:14.640 --> 42:18.900]  I more like to think of them like a dance party, which I actually find more fun.
[42:19.900 --> 42:22.300]  Like, you know, there's some people over here doing this.
[42:22.500 --> 42:24.300]  And, you know, some people over there doing that.
[42:24.520 --> 42:32.660]  And it leaves some room for other people to be heroes and heroines, you know, to come up with a thing that is going to actually make the whole thing work.
[42:32.660 --> 42:37.940]  I know going in there that I've got, you know, 150 people that really want to make it work.
[42:38.120 --> 42:41.460]  And I've got at least, you know, 20 or 30 techies that, like, really know what they're doing.
[42:41.860 --> 42:52.240]  So, you know, it's a real mistake to think of, like, any social human interaction like a Swiss watch with, like, lots of little gears and things because people aren't like that.
[42:52.320 --> 42:53.160]  It's a little messier.
[42:53.360 --> 42:56.200]  Way cooler to think of it as a party, you know.
[42:56.440 --> 42:59.260]  And actually people are at their most productive when they're like that.
[42:59.760 --> 43:03.240]  Just kind of, like, provide some drinks, provide some music, and stuff happens.
[43:03.820 --> 43:12.580]  So a great example of this, when I was in Nairobi, in a ghetto of Nairobi called Kengemi, we had this, we went and did a workshop.
[43:12.620 --> 43:17.960]  And we, you know, we were so proud of ourselves because we had these locally sourced soldering irons and locally sourced equipment.
[43:17.960 --> 43:20.440]  And we brought them over and we were going to do a workshop.
[43:20.660 --> 43:25.200]  So we had to change the schedule when we got there because there was no electricity for the morning.
[43:25.340 --> 43:28.700]  It just, you know, didn't happen in the neighborhood at all, which was fine.
[43:28.700 --> 43:31.480]  We did some more conversation-based workshops in the morning.
[43:31.640 --> 43:36.180]  And then we got ready to get set up for soldering and transmitter building in the afternoon.
[43:36.880 --> 43:42.900]  Well, so electricity was flowing against the neighborhood, except there we go, no outlets.
[43:43.360 --> 43:44.520]  What do we do with no outlets?
[43:44.640 --> 43:47.660]  We can't plug in a soldering iron and, you know, I'm not going to heat it up under my arm or something.
[43:48.180 --> 43:50.760]  So what did the people in the neighborhood do?
[43:50.880 --> 43:58.220]  But they took a light socket and just on the fly, just kind of like, you know, sent Oscar down to the neighbors and you came back with a couple of little things.
[43:58.440 --> 44:04.700]  And all of a sudden, they took apart this, like, live light socket and turned it into an outlet.
[44:04.900 --> 44:07.540]  And that's how we soldered, you know, just right out of the ceiling.
[44:07.820 --> 44:13.020]  And leaving some room for chaos leaves room for other people to be the geniuses and to teach you something that you...
[44:13.020 --> 44:16.180]  It just never even would have crossed our minds to do something like that.
[44:16.180 --> 44:17.980]  And that happens all the time.
[44:20.800 --> 44:21.280]  Yep.
[44:22.800 --> 44:23.280]  Okay.
[44:23.540 --> 44:28.420]  So also, we've told you that we have these very time-limited situations.
[44:28.680 --> 44:30.360]  You know, we have three days to build a radio station.
[44:30.400 --> 44:34.240]  And sometimes you do have to just get things done and we cheat on our rules.
[44:35.520 --> 44:40.780]  But if all else fails, at least leave things open to look and to ask questions.
[44:42.200 --> 44:45.040]  You know, you think about the way that people used to learn their trades.
[44:45.040 --> 44:47.540]  How did, like, an apprentice learn blacksmithing?
[44:48.020 --> 44:54.780]  Usually a little kid would go and, you know, they would carry the water and they would, like, help, like, you know, build the fire and all that sort of thing.
[44:56.000 --> 45:03.400]  And they would start at six and over the years they would just get lots of time to observe how a blacksmith, you know, made horseshoes or whatever.
[45:04.560 --> 45:07.420]  Now, you can't do that at a radio station today.
[45:08.160 --> 45:09.400]  You know, their doors are closed.
[45:09.400 --> 45:11.640]  You can't do that in a science lab today.
[45:11.640 --> 45:16.760]  And so, what happens in those places is really invisible to the public.
[45:17.180 --> 45:22.100]  And, you know, it's no wonder that most people don't really know very much about it.
[45:25.000 --> 45:32.700]  So, when we do these events, we just make sure that everyone remembers that the goal is not really just to build a radio station in three days.
[45:33.820 --> 45:40.480]  But for everyone to walk away just sort of thinking, like, you know, they look around at all the chaos.
[45:40.720 --> 45:43.520]  They see all these different people working on different parts and whatever.
[45:43.920 --> 45:58.820]  And if, at the end of it, someone who's attended, who's never been involved in building a radio station before, if they look and they say, you know, if these jokers can build a radio station like this, I can definitely go home and do a much better job myself.
[46:00.160 --> 46:04.460]  If we've done that, then we feel like, you know, our goal is totally met.
[46:04.600 --> 46:06.540]  We're not going to have to go build their radio station.
[46:06.600 --> 46:07.480]  They'll just build it themselves.
[46:07.760 --> 46:09.360]  They've totally learned the thing that they need to learn.
[46:10.340 --> 46:10.700]  So...
[46:10.700 --> 46:10.980]  Yeah.
[46:11.160 --> 46:13.880]  So, we have just a couple minutes for questions and stuff.
[46:14.060 --> 46:15.140]  Thank you so much for coming.
[46:15.640 --> 46:19.110]  I hope you can check out the website, PrometheusRadioProject.org.
[46:20.390 --> 46:26.610]  And, yeah, so we have a couple minutes to take questions or talk about some of the experiences that we've had or experiences that you have.
[46:27.390 --> 46:27.830]  Okay.
[46:27.910 --> 46:28.230]  Fantastic.
[46:28.370 --> 46:29.690]  We have someone coming up to the mic.
[46:29.930 --> 46:30.370]  Awesome.
[46:31.690 --> 46:34.550]  Just curious the locations of your next barn raisings.
[46:35.670 --> 46:37.090]  We don't have one set.
[46:37.210 --> 46:40.630]  We have a number of full power radio stations that are getting ready.
[46:40.790 --> 46:47.170]  We just had a filing window where about 140 new radio stations were applied for around the country.
[46:47.850 --> 46:50.950]  And we've gotten about seven or eight construction permits out of that.
[46:51.250 --> 46:53.030]  So, we're thinking about Scranton.
[46:53.190 --> 46:54.490]  We're thinking about Mississippi.
[46:54.550 --> 46:56.330]  We're thinking about Oregon.
[46:56.630 --> 46:58.910]  We haven't decided yet, but we're going to be announcing it.
[46:59.030 --> 47:01.550]  We sent around a mailing list.
[47:02.270 --> 47:10.130]  And, you know, if you sign yourself up onto that, we'll definitely keep you in touch in terms of, like, when we're building stations and all kinds of things.
[47:11.710 --> 47:12.650]  Did it go around?
[47:12.910 --> 47:14.310]  Did everyone get that mailing list?
[47:14.470 --> 47:14.990]  Come around?
[47:15.890 --> 47:16.590]  Okay, good.
[47:16.590 --> 47:19.630]  If you didn't get on it, you know, we'll be around for a little bit longer.
[47:19.870 --> 47:21.490]  It's like this clipboard that's coming around.
[47:22.030 --> 47:22.390]  Okay.
[47:24.890 --> 47:27.950]  You said that you'd gotten shut down when you had a pirate radio station.
[47:29.890 --> 47:31.990]  How... you said it lasted about a year and a half.
[47:32.390 --> 47:33.350]  How has that changed?
[47:33.530 --> 47:34.390]  Are they stricter?
[47:34.570 --> 47:35.330]  Are they less strict?
[47:35.830 --> 47:39.450]  How dangerous is it to run a pirate signal or something today?
[47:40.190 --> 47:42.510]  Well, it depends on your conception of danger.
[47:42.850 --> 47:49.670]  I mean, this is the United States and, you know, people don't get shot for operating radio stations the way they do in other countries.
[47:51.130 --> 47:53.330]  But it can be a considerable hassle.
[47:53.670 --> 47:55.110]  You know, $11,000 fine.
[47:56.610 --> 47:59.910]  You know, you can get your house broken into and your equipment taken away.
[48:00.250 --> 48:03.610]  There are a number of places where people are still running pirate stations.
[48:03.610 --> 48:07.950]  The changes that we won were tragic.
[48:08.850 --> 48:13.990]  You know, we got a lot of stations in small towns, but we got very few in the larger cities.
[48:14.170 --> 48:16.890]  We have a bill in Congress right now that would change that.
[48:16.890 --> 48:20.070]  It's called the Local Community Radio Act of 2008.
[48:20.630 --> 48:26.850]  Sponsored by John McCain and Maria Cantwell.
[48:27.390 --> 48:29.930]  And we've got a good shot of passing it this year.
[48:29.930 --> 48:37.110]  And if we do, then there will be many hundreds of more community radio stations in the big cities.
[48:37.390 --> 48:39.290]  So we're pretty excited about that.
[48:39.290 --> 48:43.870]  If you get a chance, if you know any Congress thugs, you know, let them know you want to see that bill passed.
[48:44.410 --> 48:44.850]  Okay.
[48:45.830 --> 48:47.810]  This is kind of a duplicate of the last question, actually.
[48:48.010 --> 48:53.930]  How is the progress on the FCC Chairman's decision to open up Low Power FM?
[48:55.130 --> 49:02.170]  Well, the FCC has made a couple of good decisions in the past six months or so.
[49:02.870 --> 49:06.510]  But they don't have the authority to, like, open up thousands of new frequencies.
[49:06.690 --> 49:16.690]  Because Congress actually took away authority from the FCC to give out Low Power stations, basically because the big broadcasters didn't want any more competition.
[49:17.470 --> 49:20.150]  So, right now, the next step is definitely in Congress.
[49:20.330 --> 49:25.210]  If Congress gives back the authority to the FCC, then the FCC is going to give out a lot more licenses.
[49:25.610 --> 49:37.510]  One thing we're really excited about is whoever wins this election, if it's McCain or if it's Barack Obama, both have endorsed Low Power Radio and George Bush has been opposed to it.
[49:37.510 --> 49:43.310]  So, even if McCain wins this election, yes, we will be at war for a thousand years.
[49:45.650 --> 49:48.670]  But we'll have lots of low-power radio stations to complain about it on.
[49:50.590 --> 49:51.110]  All right.
[49:51.210 --> 49:52.370]  So, I'm sorry.
[49:52.730 --> 49:54.410]  We're... but I know you.
[49:54.550 --> 49:55.070]  We can talk later.
[49:55.690 --> 49:56.770]  Thank you so much, everyone.
[50:10.870 --> 50:15.350]  We'll start the Steve and Levy keynote momentarily.
[50:15.510 --> 50:16.110]  Stick around.
[50:17.310 --> 50:21.950]  For this upcoming keynote, we have the doors open all the way back.
[50:22.530 --> 50:23.370]  Hello back there.
[50:25.010 --> 50:27.890]  And if you can't hear me just now, you'll be able to hear me momentarily.
[50:28.070 --> 50:31.670]  If you can't see the screen just now, you'll be able to see the screen to the right there.
[50:31.870 --> 50:33.050]  So, sort of see...