 Okay. Okay, so as he said, my name is Aida Jackson. He said all this stuff, so we're just going to skip right back. So I'm going to start with my WordPress story. So, you know, on WordPress.org, it says what is your WordPress story? So this is my true story. If you believe in such things, I was laying down in a bed and I heard, move your blog to WordPress. Now mind you, I had just finished my third iteration of my website on that other W website place. Okay. So it was on Wix and it was my third time. I had just completed it and then I was laying down and that's what I heard and I was like, oh man, starting all over, but I did it. And then later on, I met this guy. Right? So this is our actual WordPress story. I had already been friends with him. He was a blogger. We were talking about blogging and he said, have you ever heard of this thing called WordCamps? And I was like, no, he's like, oh, I go all the time and it's with WordPress and I was like, oh, that's funny. I just moved my website to WordPress. So yeah, I'd like to know more about this. So long story short, we started dating and he took me to WordCamp Miami, my very first WordCamp ever. It was the 10th anniversary of WordCamp and they asked if I would like to volunteer and I was like, sure. And I ended up volunteering at the registration desk at WordCamp Miami on their 10th anniversary. It was Mayhem and I was in love with this community and then they were like, we need a room emcee. Would you be a room emcee? And I was like, sure, so I was a room emcee and he's like, I'm speaking, come speak with me. And I was like, sure, so I went and I was speaking with him. So before I knew it, I had done all these things and at the end of the day he comes and he says, would you be interested in doing this like all the time? And I was like, yeah. So long story short, that was five years ago. We are now married. We are two years married. Thank you. So I don't do this alone, although I'm up here by myself and I do talk on my own. Most of the time I'm with this lovely man here. So I say to you that as I'm talking about this whole global thing, that this is what this ended up becoming, you don't have to do this by yourself. You can do it with a partner and your partner doesn't have to be your husband. Your partner can be a friend. Your partner can be your business partner, but you don't have to do it alone. For me, I will tell anybody, anyone and anyone who knows me knows this. If you received an email, it was probably not from me. It was probably from William and then I help him follow up, but that whole typing, texting thing, that's just not who I am, but that's who he is. So I use him for that. So our current outreach, for those of you who like numbers and the reason I started doing this, 25 is the number, 25 plus, because more than that, is the number of conferences we've actually attended, whether it be in person or virtually. I know that at least we're WordPress, we're at least at that number, if not more. Since 2018, this is when we've been doing this. Nine is the number of different countries we've spoken at, both in person and virtually, in person right now, outside of the United States. It has been Canada and Costa Rica. The rest have been virtual conferences that we've spoken at. And 12 plus countries is the number of countries where we can say we have a friend or colleague that we speak to on a fairly regular basis that call us or send us emails. Hey, can you come and talk? Hey, can you just join us on this chat? We need to hear from you, we wanna talk to you. So that's where we are right now. But why WordPress? Why did we end up here? And how did we end up here? So as you already know, WordPress has a global presence. And again, if you like the numbers, 43.2% of the websites that you see globally are WordPress websites. So why not use the number one website hosting company to be the place where you begin your journey? 12% is the growth of WordPress every year since 2011, right? So again, it's not going away. It's actually growing and it's expanding its reach. We're meeting people who have heard of WordPress. I still meet people even in the United States who've never even heard of WordPress. So imagine once they hear what I'm doing, what we're doing, they're like, oh, tell me more. New people onto the website. So that's great. And 77 million is a number of comments made every month on somebody's WordPress website. So that's a nice number. Like I tell people even with that other place, you know that matter of place, a billion people a day might as well be there, right? So more than just websites. So like I mentioned before, word camps were all here, right? So this is a wonderful thing. But WordPress has WordPress.tv. So if you want to learn something, you go to WordPress.tv, type in what you want to learn and boom, all these people who have come to word camps and they've spoken, their videos are there. So it's a place that you can learn. Make.wp on WordPress.org, you can go there and if you go to make.wordpress.org, there are 21 different ways that you can just connect and meet with people and just get to know about WordPress and then what they're doing. And then as you're doing that, you're meeting other people and you're learning about what they're doing. Oh, when you do that and oh, great. So this is more than just websites, right? We have contributed today. I don't think this camp will have one, but sometimes you'll go to a word camp and it's contributed today. So again, those same 21 groups get together and instead of being online, they're all in the same room. And then, I think that was it for that one. So WordPress.com, you can start there. That's where I started, it's free. So you don't even have to have a host and I'll be honest with you when I first started on WordPress.com, people will go, who's your host? I didn't even know what that meant. Well, now I can tell you all about hosting and tell you about all the wonderful sponsors that are hosts and what that all means, but back then I had no clue. I just knew my blog was on WordPress.com, right? But beyond that, it's inexpensive to come to a word camp. So when we started doing this, we were in word camps and we were like, let's check out those other techy conferences at $300 a ticket. We were like, well, word print and word camp it is because most of them are $300 and up to attend and even for speakers, some of them even have speakers pay to go and speak, right? So you could do that for here for free and we welcome you to come and share your knowledge. There's 21 different ways, like I mentioned, for you to get involved with WordPress and it could be a fun community. And I will tell you this. Usually, as my husband said, I am a university teacher and we'll talk about that in a little bit, but I'm really bad at remembering names. I'm really bad at remembering faces. People are like, oh, I'm bad at names, but I'm great at faces. I'm bad at both, okay? Except for here, it's the first place that William will go, oh, who's that? I'm like, oh, that's such and such. We met them at word camp at Atlanta. Oh yeah, well, he came with his wife or they have three kids, how the heck do I remember that? Because this is my tribe. So if you need a tribe, if you need a place to connect and not only that you need to connect, but maybe they need to connect, I have friends here. I have friends here that are watching, that are listening, that are sitting here and being a support. They know me, I know them and it's wonderful. If you feel like, man, I just don't fit in anywhere, try here. This is a wonderful place to come and connect. Oh, I love you all, see? That's why I do this. Wordpress is accessible. So there's lots of ways that you can put on your website for accessibility, right? And there's plenty of, there's even, one of those teams is an accessibility team because they want not everyone to be a part of Wordpress. But what I'm gonna tell you is that if you wanna be global, is that make sure you're accessible too. Make sure you use those tools, but then also don't only think, if you've sat in on any of the talks, one of the talks they were saying, don't just think website. Think, don't think, oh, I'm only gonna put on my website and that's it, think of other ways that you can have your information out there, but not just that, think of ways that people are going to access that information, right? So everyone's not gonna be on their laptop. They're gonna be on their phone. Majority of people are gonna be on their phone. So when you create that website, make sure they can access it through the phone. I am, and I say this to even my students, I am neurodiverse. What the one, they call neurodiverse. And that mean, I have ADHD. So I'm all over the place. That's why I talk fast. That's why I'm like, a little nervous. But I'm one of these people. I go to your website and I'm like, ooh. And I use my phone. If I can't access it, I'm done. I'm not even looking anymore. I'm not going to my computer. I'm just letting you know now, unless you're fantastic and I have to know more, I'm not even gonna bother. So I'm telling you, if you wanna be global, if you wanna make your reach go beyond, make sure that when someone wants to access you, if they have their tablet, they can get to you. If they have their phone, they can get to you. If they have their laptop, they can get to you. But then we're also gonna talk about other ways that you can make yourself accessible beyond your website. So community is at the core of WordPress. All of this is way beyond what you see. Many people here, and if you don't mind raising your hand, how many of you are already a part of make.wp on some level? So you're on a committee, on a community, you've done contributor day or something so that people can see it's more than just this. But even if you just do this, do this and your local meetup, meet up with the people locally and then start branching out from there. Because you don't know who knows who, right? And that's what we've learned through our journey. So now a test to you for you. Can anyone tell me what city this is? Now if you've been here, don't tell me. But just I want you to tell me if you'd have never been here, can you guess what city this is? No. Okay, I'm gonna give you another one. Now can you tell me what city this is? Nope. Nope. Huh? It is not in the U.S. Okay, you ready for your next clue? It's Egypt. So why did I, I was like, she is so random. Why are those pictures up there? Why? Because in building community and wanting to reach beyond your local community and go globally, you have to come out of what it is that you see on TV, right? The first time I saw a picture of Egypt and Morocco because we have friends in Egypt and we have friends in Morocco, I was like, well, let me look up these cities. And I was like, whoa, that is not what we're shown here in the U.S. When we're shown Egypt, we're shown those three pyramids and we're not shown beyond that. There, it's a wonderful bustling city. When we look at pictures of other places, especially in Africa, we're seeing one image, one set of images. We don't see the beautiful bustling cities that people are thriving, not just living, but they're thriving. So we in here, especially here in the United States, we have a really clear image of who we think people who live outside the United States are. So I'm here to tell you, step out of that. Step away from that. Because the only way you're gonna be able to take your business, your community organization, your church, yourself outside of the U.S. is that you're gonna have to learn about other places. You're gonna have to learn about their culture. And don't assume because you know one person who happens to be Latin. So the joke is, I'm Puerto Rican. And when I go to Costa Rica, we speak Spanish, but we don't necessarily speak the same Spanish because I'm a New Yorkan born in the United States in New York and my Spanish is kind of broken and Puerto Ricans, if you know anything about us, we make up our own words. So we gotta figure it out. But then even in Costa Rica, the joke is, we're like Puerto Ricans, that's what they say. We're like Puerto Ricans, we make up our own words. So I have a friend who's a Colombian and she laughs hysterically when I say certain things because she's like, you know, that's not a word, right? You know, we don't say that, right? But then my friend who's from Nicaragua will say, but we don't say that. So we just laugh. Point being, we have a Costa Rican, a Puerto Rican, a Colombian and what is it, Nicaraguan, right? So it's not a joke, but it's the truth. We don't have the same culture. We speak the same language, but we don't share everything in our culture where it's okay culturally in my neck of the woods is not okay culturally in her neck of the woods. So just because you have a Spanish-speaking friend or you took Spanish in school doesn't mean you know everything about Spanish people. So the number one thing I'm gonna start you with is be open. Learn that new language, learn that culture, but be open to the idea that you don't know because if somebody looked in the United States and took someone like me from Brooklyn, New York and said that's how new Americans are, they'd be sorely disappointed when they come down to Jacksonville like I was and came straight into the heart of the South which is not quite the heart and said, oh wait, that's not American. Oh yeah, just a different part of America, right? So just keep that in mind as you continue to grow and friendships, like I said, build the best community. So you wanna grow, you wanna learn, but if you can see over there, there was a spotlight, I turned to her it would be right over there. I put her here. This is Isha Adams because what I mentioned before about being a university instructor, right? So this friendship started at a word camp in Greenville. We just met, hit it off, good friends. Okay, cool. We met again here in Birmingham, talked again. I think in that one we were both talking. We met again, we're at Camp Jacksonville and at this point our friendship is growing and growing and we were able to talk about different things and my darling friend decided she's gonna open up and start this new institute at Lenore Ryan University in Asheville, North Carolina and she did and then she called me up and said, hey, I want you to be an instructor. Now mind you, I was like, me? I'm just, I mean it's talking stuff but I'm not really an instructor. She's like, no, no, no. I said, no, no, this probably someone more qualified for this than I am. And she's like, no, no, no, I want you to be the instructor for this particular course in this institute and I have been for three years now but that opened up another door. So don't discount those friendships, right? Those new friendships, those old friendships, you do not know who you might meet, who might be the one that opens the door to your next new thing. So I have this word that I learned a long time ago. My husband says one of my favorites but some of you business people would know it's called pivot. So when I started my business, I was like, I'm gonna be an artist and that's all I'm gonna do. I have news for you. That's something we do on occasion but it is not what I do and it's because of these friendships. It's because of moving beyond the website, moving beyond the social media, putting myself out there and being willing to be open to the idea of possibilities, of someone new, of something new because when that opportunity opens up, I'm like, okay. When she said it, I said, okay, we'll do it and I'm about to take on a second university because of that one step. So the other thing I wanted to say here and that's I don't like to repeat but it's here already. One of the great things about having friendships and whether it be friendships that you started here or you have for years is that when your friend knows you and you have a good friendship, your friendship, your friend will let you know your blind spots. They're gonna be the ones to encourage you. Another friend who's sitting here right next to her was here in my very first talk in work in Birmingham. So I'm gonna tell you, my very first talk was here ever with besides when I spoke with my husband in Miami and this was my first talk on my own and I prepared and I came up here and I was so nervous. My 30 minute talk took me 15 minutes because that New Yorker kicked in and it was like, bruh. And then I said it and I was like, any questions? And then everybody was like, nope. And I was like, well, you're free to go home now because I was the last talk of the day but before that talk happened, my friend David was here and he was the one who encouraged me. Now I don't even know what would have happened had we not had to talk before or we're not there. But today when I was in the green room, I was standing there and thinking about the talk and David walks in and I was like, it's a moment. And he's like, what do you mean? I was like, I know you don't remember but my first talk ever was here in Birmingham and it was you and me in the room and here we are again, five years later, you and I and I'm about to talk again and just knowing you're here just helps. And then I should came right before it was time for me to talk and I was like, ooh, okay, I could do this. So if you have anything that you're not sure about, go to a close friend, anyone that you know and say, you know what? I'm really thinking about doing XYZ. Now let me tell you this, my best friend, he's always encouraging me, but he don't count. I mean, I'm just being honest like your mom coming and going, girl, you should do that. And you're like, okay, mom, I know. Yeah, it's like, all right. No, but when a friend that does it, that you admire, that you respect, comes and says, you should be a speaker, which is what happened to me. I was like, I should? And they were like, yeah, you should. I was like, hey, babe, you know, someone said I should just be a speaker. He's like, I've been telling you that. I'm like, I know, but it meant more from them just something about that. But they're the ones that can tell you, you know what, you would be good at that. If you say, I'm thinking about doing X, Y, Z, if they say, you know what, maybe you should think about this, right? Don't take it as a discouragement. Take it as, all right. I'm gonna give you all a little inside thing. When Aisha and I first started, we were bumping hands. And not in a bad way, but because we were trying to learn each other's communication style. And she was pulling out of me something I didn't even know was in there. This is my first time as a university professor, right? So I'm like, I can't do this. I'm like, I'm just gonna call her and tell her thanks, but no thanks, I can't. For our course, I've never done that before. Well, I have news for you. I've done four and I've been doing this for three years. So your friend is gonna pull, thank you, but they're gonna pull something out of you. But I took that and went further. So these are my friends. So you'll notice something over here. We can go back, let's just go back real quick. Just so you can see all the beautiful faces who support what we do, who encourage us. And there's more. I just grabbed three of the ones that had Aisha and David and them there. These are just some. When I started this whole journey, the last thing in the world I thought is that I would be here on the stage talking to you about what I do in Africa, or what we do in Australia, or Malaysia, or that we're getting ready to go to WordCamp Europe. That's the last thing in the world I thought would have happened five years ago. But they are a big part of that. So how do you take what you're doing in WordPress now or in your business now and take it global? So the first thing is like I said earlier, you're gonna have to go outside of your comfort zone and go into other realms. So think beyond websites. Think beyond camps. Look into social media. So here it says social media could be your friend or not. So I'm gonna show my husband's things, I'm gonna steal it. So if you have a cell phone, pick up your cell phone and say this can be my best friend or my worst enemy. So we teach kids and teach them that. But I'm gonna tell you as adults, a lot of adults go into social media and they're like, this is my social media and I can say whatever I want. This is my platform, if you don't like it, don't come here. Well, I'm gonna tell you now, if you plan to go global, you may wanna rethink that because whether you know it or not, a global audience is watching you. If you're on YouTube, if you're on Instagram, if you're on Facebook, if you're on Twitter, I mean, you name it, nowadays, a global audience is watching everything you say. With William when Nigeria was going through what they were going through politically and we teach students in Nigeria and he was like, that's not right what they're saying. I'm gonna say something and I'm like, hon, we wanna visit. So be quiet, don't say anything because we don't know who's watching. We don't wanna get there and they'll be like, are you Mr. Jackson who said such and such? Yeah, no, no, no, it's okay. We could talk about it, but on social media, let's be quiet because people are watching. So yes, you're entitled to your opinions but things that can be controversial unless that's your intention, you may just wanna talk to your friends about it. You may not wanna put it global because it may close a door that you were hoping would open for you. Another social media that a lot of people sleep on but that's the platform that really launched us into being able to start teaching globally is Clubhouse. It's a fantastic social media platform. No one that sees your face, you don't have to dress up, you don't have to get cute, you just need to know what you're talking about and jump in a few rooms and start talking. Don't wanna be the one, ask questions, start sharing, share what you know. You can be very clear on what your niche is or whatever it is and just jump in those rooms but just start talking. And before you know it, people will start inviting you which is what happened with us. Hey, you're a thought leader on this thing, on this subject, will you come and join this room? And before you knew it, we knew it and people were having conferences on Clubhouse. We're having a global conference. It'll be 24 hours. Will you take a few rooms? Sure, so we took a few rooms. Next thing you know, someone from Australia was like, we're having a global conference. Will you join us? Will you talk with us? Sure. And then people in Africa were saying, you're educators. We need educators. Would you teach our students virtually? And William is an educator of 34 plus years. He just retired this year. He said, yes, we will. And he was like, honey, we're gonna be teaching a class in Nigeria. And I was like, oh, cool, that's great. He's like, yeah, if we're getting up at four in the morning to do it, let's do that. Now, I'll be honest with you, nine times out of 10, he does most of it, but I do too. When we went Costa Rica, I was teaching a class. We have a class that we teach in Nigeria. Now we have a class in Kenya. We have another class in South Africa. And because we teach in the university level as well, the class in South Africa has expanded over to the adults. They are teachers who want to learn how to be global and they've asked if we would teach them as well. So you see how it's growing. We have someone in Malaysia who said, you guys are educators. Can we interview you? Okay, we have someone in China. Hey, I need help with this. Would you do this? Okay, this is how it begins to expand. You expand outside of your comfort zone and then others will start to invite you in. They're gonna start saying, hey, you know what you're talking about with whatever it is that you do, and they're gonna invite you to the next level. YouTube, believe it or not, is also a really great one. I know a lot of people who have expanded their global reach just by their hashtags, by making sure that they're not just catering to an American audience, and their audience grew more in Italy than it has grown here in the United States. The other thing you wanna know is when it comes to communicating, you wanna make sure that you have your WhatsApp because nine times out of 10 other countries, they're using WhatsApp more than they're using the actual cell phone. So there are things going on in WhatsApp and in Clubhouse. So if you wanna go beyond that. So I know this is where we go into the woo part. But if you guys are interested, we did bring our Oculus with us. We have Oculus, we'll travel. We are Metaverse expert, well, there's no such thing as necessarily expert, but we are thought leaders in the Metaverse. We are certified virtual reality educators, again, outside of my comfort zone, but through Clubhouse, I learned about the blockchain, and from learning about the blockchain, we went into the Metaverse, and from Metaverse, we went into chat GPT, which is the new buzzword. But there's an entire audience of people that you'll never see here. You'll never see on Clubhouse. You'll never see anywhere else, except in the Metaverse. You wanna have a laugh? That's us. Aren't we cute? This is an all space VR. This is a Microsoft product. These are our avatars in the Metaverse. You can join us, but only until March 10th. So this is a really good example of don't put all your eggs in one basket, right? So there are a lot of people who are in Microsoft on all space VR, who have built businesses, actual businesses, have built community, have made friends, and Microsoft just announced their closing. It's called Sunset. Sunset is March 10th. So if you put all your eggs in that basket, now you have to rebuild from scratch. But we did not. This is our avatars in Spatial, which is S-P-A-T-I-A-L. And then these are our avatars. And another one that's called Engage. Engage is the organization that we have our certification from. It's an actual platform for business and education. Morehouse College, which is an HBCU, actually has class in the metaverse. They teach chemistry in the metaverse. So for those of you who are like, isn't the metaverse about games? Yeah, it's a lot of gaming. Most of your kids have already been in there. If you have kids or grandkids, they've been in the metaverse. They play Roblox and Minecraft and Fortnite. We actually have a friend here who told us last night he plays Fortnite. So they've already been in the metaverse. They can tell you all about it. But what I'm gonna tell you is, like I said, there's an audience that will never be here, but you can catch them on VR, okay? You can capture that. There are people who run businesses, e-commerce businesses on the metaverse. So we're not just talking global, we're called inter, what's that? Interdimensional, I guess? You can get into the metaverse and do this. The difference between teaching, say for example, in real life, in chemistry class, and this is why we decided we would be VR educators. If you have a chemistry class and you have those chemicals, you guys remember that? And your teacher was looking at you like, oh my God, you're gonna blow up the whole room. You don't blow up anything in the metaverse. And if you do, you just reset and start over, right? Anybody here dissect frog? Dissect the frog? I did. It was disgusting. You could do it virtually and engage. No blood and no cleanup, right? It's just, oh, we dissected and I can open it up really big. I can make it the side of the room, walk into its heart like, oh, wow. Chemistry, especially, I've always loved chemistry. So, you know, atoms, some atoms are small and comparatively speaking, the other ones are really large, right? So you can actually show that in the metaverse. So we were in a classroom where they were showing us, oh, this is a hydrogen atom. And we're like, holding a hydrogen atom. And they're like, oh, that's a plutonium one. You look out the window, excuse me, and it's the size of a planet. And you're like, whoa, now mind you, that's why you would have to put on the headset to understand what I'm trying to tell you. It's like standing here and looking out the window and seeing the difference physically. So, if you're adventurous, this is another great way to go beyond. The other thing is, it's free. So most metaverse platforms are free. And if you know how to build websites, now I'm gonna tell you this, if you could build a website and somehow connect to the metaverse, and there are people who are doing that through AR, which is, you know, alternate reality where I can see you, but I can also see the pigs sitting next to you at the same time. People are taking real-life websites, they're connecting, VR, XR, MR, which is mixed reality, they're putting them together. So when someone goes onto your website, now these things are popping up while they have the headset, they're in the website, but then the product is popping up and all these things are popping up. That's a whole new area that's growing. So if you're looking for new ways to make money, if you're trying to niche out of where you are because you're like, this is saturated, telling you move into this, it may seem otherworldly, it may seem kind of, I don't know, you know, I think of this, I think UFOs, right? So it may seem like this isn't real, that people, adults are not gonna want this, people are looking for something new. People are tired of like, for example, what's that, the name of that Zoom? Zoom fatigue, everybody knows what Zoom fatigue is. A lot of companies are having their employees going to the Metaverse to have one-on-one meetings, right? And again, this is free and it's global. The other countries are way ahead of us when it comes to this. And you can go in, you can build an entire space. This here, this is another place where we are educators, it's the IIE, it's the International Institute of Education, we are teachers here. This man built an entire university campus in the Metaverse and he has about 10 of us as educators that come in and teach in the Metaverse. So how can you get started? You're here now, so you're already part of WordPress, but if you're not already, join wordpress.org and look at make.wp and see where you can kind of insert yourself. If you were in the talk earlier, if you don't have a blog, that's a good way to start, start a blog, that's how we started, that's bloggers, that's how we first got to know people. Join your local meetup. Again, that's a great way to make friends, build community as we talked about before. And then share your interests. Don't be afraid to tell people you are a university professor by day and a cosplayer by night. I love cosplay, I love superhero stuff. I love Lord of the Rings, with some people may not, if one person is interested, there's two, and I've always said if there's two, there's three, if there's three, there's four and so on and so on. So if you're interested, someone else is interested. And then this here, so I put do it, then I put a line. So I'm gonna tell you, do it, you've heard do it afraid, right? Do it even when you don't feel like doing it. Do it all. You know, people tell you choose one thing. That's why I say Renaissance woman, I do it all. So if you say, either we have the superhero thing going on over there, I'm like, okay, let's go. Oh, we're doing the Lord of the Rings, okay, I'll do that too. Oh, and we have an art show coming, okay, I'm coming. We have poetry night, no problem, I'm there. I'm just gonna go. And that might stick, it may not stick. I'm doing it because I love it. Now I will say that, do it because you love it because you enjoy it. Don't try to fit in where you don't because then you will feel like an imposter. But you're not an imposter if you love it. If you love to do it and you wanna be out there, do it. Someone's gonna go, oh, you're really good at that. Why don't you come and join us and do some more of that. And then they may say, true story, wordpress story. We met someone in WordCamp Philly. He had never been to a WordCamp. He is part of shifter. You guys know what shifter is? He went to a WordCamp. He said, he took the day off, he decided he was gonna go to this WordCamp. Started talking to one of the sponsors at the sponsor table and they were from Japan and they kind of hit it off and he told them what they were doing and what he was thinking of doing. And they were like, why don't you come over here? And he ended up working in Japan from that one conversation at a Wordpress table meeting with someone and just telling them, listen, this is what I do and this is what I wanna do and this is what I'm interested in doing. They're like, perfect, that's what we want you to do for us. So he left his company, ended up working for that company, going to Japan, living in Japan and now is part owner of said company. Okay, this is a true Wordpress story and it happens all the time. The only thing is that no one really talks about it. You just know that this one went from this job to that job and now they live in Italy somewhere. How many have you met people from, what's that, automatic? And they're like, oh, I live in Spain, honey. You're like, oh, you're from Spain? No, but we're from America now, I live in Spain. Oh, cool, I wanna do that. Exactly, Wordpress is where it starts. So now that I've said all that, any questions? Anybody have excuses that they don't want to? Can you give us more information about the meta-universe and the connection with that? I have some ideas that bringing an ancient thought into the meta-universe as a memory palace. As a memory palace. A memory palace? Comes from ancient times, it's called a method of loci. Oh, okay, okay. To also to be able to create a memory palace to allow you to encoke it. Oh, memory palace, okay. And encoke what you experience in a virtual reality internally. I use a baseball team that I have in my head for a certain list of items, as opposed to memorizing the road items, which I would surely forget, that I've given each member on the baseball team a name-related position. I can write a lot of those off very quickly. So the beautiful thing about the meta-universe is exactly that. Yeah, I wanted to know more the mechanics about how to get connected to that and how you do that through the Oculus or whatever you're using to do that. Okay, so there's several ways that you could create that environment in the meta-universe. So one of the ways is you actually build the space. So spatial, can I get some tissue? So spatial has, excuse me, can you pass me some tissue? Sorry, pardon me, y'all. I just got the little sniffles here, okay. So spatial now recently, you can build out your own space. So there are classes, you know, YouTube University too, but there are classes that you can just take to learn the basic mechanics of building a space. Through the desktop, yep. So spatial has it through desktop. Unity is free. So you can go to unity.com. I think I believe it's unity.com and just it's all about building 3D spaces. So building 3D objects, building 3D spaces. And I'll tell anyone here who's also an educator or has young children, Unity is free. Blender is free. Blender, you build 3D objects. If you know students, get them on there. Let them play. Kids will figure this out faster than we will. You know, I'm still trying to figure out how to build a room and you know, the other kids are already building rooms and building objects. So you can go on, download it to your computer, learn how to build it, and then spatial has an actual video that teaches you how to take things from Unity and upload it onto the spatial platform. There are a lot of platforms that already have it built for you and you can upload it from there. Again, there are people who, that's what they do. They build spaces so you can look up for someone to build up what you want. But in the metaverse and in the Oculus, especially in Engage, there's other ways too. You can, if you say for example, you mentioned a baseball field or a baseball team. You can take a 360 camera, go into the middle of a field, record it, and then upload it and then in your Oculus, you're standing in that field. I know what I was gonna say. Okay, yeah, so there's more than one way to have that 3D experience. I was talking with a pilot about two weeks ago and he indicated to me that one of the things that they do in pilot training is, and this is a civilian, he runs, he applies for FedEx, I believe, but he said that they actually have a virtual cockpit that they sit in because when they have to go through their emergency procedures, they have to know where they need to go to touch. And I thought that would be a great idea for a virtual reality to be able to do something but not just as far as the real world of the cockpit but the things that you need to remember on a daily basis that if you were in a nurse, the things that you need to do in a certain order to be able to have a credible report. Oh yeah, so Engage, if you have an Oculus or a VR headset, Engage is an app that you can download to your headset. So if you go into Engage, they actually have a car engine and you can put the pieces and it'll tell you what the pieces are and you have to put them all in before the car engine will begin. So it's a great way to teach, which is why we're going into schools and into districts and letting them know, like our kids are tired, they're bored, they rather play, well then let's give them a way to play and learn at the same time. But it's helpful for adults too. A lot of people don't know that the HoloLens, that's the Microsoft VR headset, it's probably about like $3,000. Doctors are using that to perform surgery and that's because they can actually do the scan of your heart and then they can take that heart with the headset on and open it up and pinpoint exactly where they need to go and they use that when they go into surgery, they have the HoloLens on so that they know exactly where to find that spot that they have to perform surgery on. So the Metaverse and VR headsets is not some whoo-whoo thing of the future, it's happening right now. Big businesses are using it, big companies are using them. As a matter of fact, we didn't even talk about that, but NFTs are making a second comeback. There are companies that already have headquarters in the Metaverse, Lowe's is one, Walmart is another. Coca-Cola made so much money doing their VR AR thing with their Coke machines. So if you had your phone, you could put it up against the Coke machine, the AR would pop up and you would see all these things, you punch it on your phone and then you make money and you could buy an NFT from them. They made so much money doing that and we're just thinking, oh, this is a fun game and Coca-Cola's going cha-ching, Lowe's is going cha-ching, why not you go cha-ching, do something that will disrupt the industry. We are still waiting for that person who, because listen, if I could be a developer like some of y'all and I could build the way you could, I would have already created a shopping cart that you can come to a store and take the outfit and put it in the shopping cart and it will take you through the whole process and before you know it, you've been in a metaverse shopping like if you were shopping in real life but you just bought $200 worth of clothes. Why someone hasn't done that yet? I do not know. But you could take that one for free, just remember at Love Built Life on Cash Shop, okay? I'm just telling, there's money to be made. There's still, you know, people are like, oh, NFTs are a thing of the past. I just read that the DMV in California is putting all of the titles for the cars on the blockchain through NFTs. That's not dead. They're doing that now. There are other companies, Home Depot and Lowe's, who already lined up to start that process all over again. So if you know anything about the blockchain, you know that that is starting to grow. Again, we went through a dip and then a Lowe and now we're growth. So where can you plug in? And I'm telling you from being on Clubhouse and all you have to do is go on Clubhouse to know that globally, this is a conversation. Do you know why? Because companies are not the only one. Entire countries want to be on the metaverse. Entire countries are on the blockchain saying, hey, you know what, we want to be a part of this. But I may not be able to make it to Ecuador or to Africa right now. It's expensive. But I can do that virtually. I can have that conversation on Clubhouse. And since I'm having that conversation, I can be like, well, I know about the blockchain and I know about NFTs and I know that. And then someone might say, well, since you and your husband are already doing this, that's how we ended up in Engage. Why don't you come over here and show my people how to do it? And then they pay us to go over there to do that. So right now, no one has paid for a plane ticket but they do send money so that we can do it virtually. They do say, will you get on a computer class and show my people how to do this virtually? We sure will. Will you show us how to get on the, some people buy that box, the Oculus or the whatever it is and they say, I don't know how to use this. Someone paid us $200 to just walk them through the step of opening the box, putting on the headset, signing up and walking them through some apps. That's how you grow. That's how you go beyond what you're doing here and taking this technology to a whole nother level because we are in a global economy and you don't have to go to XYZ country to be interviewed by XYZ person or to be a president in their Metaverse classroom or in their Metaverse meeting or in their virtual meeting on Zoom. You could be sitting with someone or several someone's. I didn't put the pictures in there but I have pictures where we're talking in a meeting and there's someone from Nigeria, there's someone from Uganda, there's another person from Kenya, there's another person from South Africa. So we have more than enough people to come and meet. Bungie. I just wanna say at 2.30 the business track has been canceled but the developer is gonna be on a sound stage because there's not gonna be a presentation at 2.30 for the business track. Oh yeah. So you come to a lot of work camps and then you build these relationships. I fully think our friendship came from you. What strategies would you give people in the room for developing deeper friendships and connections that will leave Birmingham with them now? Okay. So one of my favorite talks to give is you're out in a work camp now, what? So I'll give you a really quick. I can be really introverted at times. As friendly as I can be. I can be like too much. I just wait too much. So does anyone know what the number one pickup line is? So pick someone up. It's hello. It's easy. Huh? It's the only one you got. It's hello. It's hello. So what I learned was if I wanted to make friends, I have to be friendly, right? And the best way to be friendly is to say hello. So that's what I teach everyone. If you wanna make new friends, the first thing to do is say hi. I'm Maida. What's your name? Michael. What do you do? Awesome. That is awesome. How long have you been doing that? About 30 years. 30 years. Yeah. I know it's hard to believe I'm old enough to be doing that for so long. Hey, listen. You too, man. But that's cool. That's awesome. That's it. That quick. And some people you're gonna connect with. So I should not connect it right away. And before you knew it, we were just like. And some people was gonna be like, oh, well that's great. It was nice to meet you and keep going. But guess what? I'm gonna tell you this. Today, that might be the case. So he's not here. But I'm gonna tell you, Nathan, this is real true. Nathan and I met in War Camp Miami during that madness and the mayhem and the whole thing that was going on that I told you. And we never connected. Just kept going, right? Now we met again in War Camp Jacksonville. And I was helping a woman who came to War Camp Jacksonville from Africa. And my husband and I were showing her around. And we were talking. And she and I became good friends. And unfortunately, she's passed away since then. But we became good friends. And Nathan and her had connected. And Nathan came over to her and he was like. It was really great meeting you. Mind you, I'm sitting right there. I said, he's like, it was really great meeting you. And then he looked over and he was like, oh, hi. You know, nice meeting you too. And I told him, and that girl, I don't have no idea. What made me say this? But I said to Nathan, I said, that's OK. Because you and I will be in Atlanta. And by the end of that, you'll be saying the same thing to me. I don't know why made me say it, but it just came out and that was it. So in Atlanta, I went to his talk. And I was blown away. And afterwards, I was just like, hey, that was a great talk. And it really inspired me. And he was like, yeah, and we were just talking. I was like, my husband is a speaker. And he's like, I know your husband. I was like, oh, you did? Well, he was my boyfriend at the time. But he's a speaker. He's like, yeah, he's like, you should speak too. That's when I was like, whew. And he was like, yeah, you should apply to speak. You would make a good speaker. OK. Well, the rest, as they say, is history. We didn't connect the first time. We didn't connect the second time. But the third time we connected so well, then Nathan is one of our friends. And the first time I ever saw, excuse me, I told you, I'm emotional. The first time I ever saw the sunset on the Pacific Ocean was on the ocean of Costa Rica. And my husband was there. And my friends were there, including Nathan. But the second time I saw the sunset on the Pacific Ocean, my husband was there. And my friend Nathan was there. So thank you. It doesn't matter if you don't connect the first time. Let it flow. Keep connecting. Say hello. Say how you're doing. That's really interesting. Be genuine. If you're not interested, say, oh, that's really interesting. And keep it moving. It's OK. Guess what? We all know what interesting means, you know what I mean? But the next time, it might be like, hey, so how is that business going? How is that, you know, you can translate that to the metaverse, right? The whole oxygen thing, that'd be really cool. And then I might meet you again. You might be like, hey, I took that advice and I did that. So I'm going to jump on the Oculus with you. We're going to do this together, right? That's how you do that. So thank you for coming.