 All right, we're going to get started. All right, so thank you all for coming. We really appreciate it. Before we get started, I'll quickly clarify that throughout the talk, we do an anonymous Q&A. So if you want to participate in that, and we encourage you to do so, go to slido.com and submit the code FOWUCD. We also will be doing a raffle at the end. The raffle prize is for people who are present. Just something to keep in mind. And we have two great speakers here with us today. We have David Grant, a UC Davis School of Law alumnus, who currently leads Pop Sugar Studios, which develops, produces, and distributes Pop Sugar branded digital video content, television, and film for a monthly US audience of 40 million people. That's a lot of people. He conceived of and launched Fox TV Studios, which is not the same as Fox News. Think of Malcolm in the middle. Growing the studio to a major global television supplier, which has produced thousands of hours of scripted reality and documentary television in over 25 countries. During Grant's time as president, the studio produced numerous Emmy Golden Globe and Peabody winning series. Dr. Jeanette Ruiz is an assistant professor in the Department of Communications at UC Davis and a campus faculty scholar. She was also a first generation college student. Her specialty lies in strategic communication with a specific interest in emerging practices in digital and social media. She's worked as a human resource and public relations consultant for various nonprofits, health care, and financial organizations. And past research of hers has focused on international social networks, public health communication, and cultural assessments of media advocacy. So with that being said, please give a round of applause for David and Jeanette. Thank you. It's wonderful to have all of you here. Before we get started, I'm just curious, are any of you in the online Com3 class? No. OK. Just wondering. So there you go, so much for marketing to your students. But speaking of students, one of the interesting questions I often get when I teach the strategic communication course is I have a Facebook. I have an Instagram, so I know analytics. Can any of you relate? How many of you feel you know analytics? Yeah? Yeah. So I was hoping that with your expertise you could touch on true analytics for how you use them, how you engage with them, and how it might be useful for our students to understand. First I want to say I've heard that finals are next week. So you guys are either out of your mind, desperate for some cupcakes, or interested in the topic. So I hope it's all three of those. Either way, thank you. Yeah, so thanks for coming. So I spent a lot of time at what I'd call the intersection of data and storytelling. And I'm going to keep in mind that this is the future of work. But I think there's a lot of work to be done in that area. And I think there's a pendulum. So when I started out in the business, it was all about, like, do you have a gut? Like, you hear a story, and you go, like, oh, that could be a hit television show, or that could be a movie. And everything was about your gut. And the kind of polling that you had was something called, strangely enough, a friend of my dad's invented something called Cinema Score. And a guy would go out in the theaters, and he would say, like, would you give this movie an A, B, C, D, or F? And then they would give it a grade. And the Cinema Score would be, let's say it was a B. And that would have a huge impact over time. And people would say, like, I don't want to see a B movie. This is expensive. I don't want to see an A movie. And that was actually the first analytics that I can remember. It was literally people walking out to theaters and exit polling theaters. Today, the pendulum has swung, in some ways, like, way to the other side, which is there are giant advertisers that I deal with on a daily basis. And they believe that the entire answer lies in analytics, that you can actually, scientifically, and algorithmically find your way to a great story. And I have seen some awesome art painted by computer algorithms and probably some pretty good short stories I've read by computer algorithms. But the hard part, the real art to it, is taking these analytics. And one of the problems is we have too much information. So let's say in my company, we're getting a billion pieces of data, like, a week, essentially. First of all, how you collect that. And then what is the story that that data is telling you? And that's a huge field that is way over my head. But the people like you, I'm sure, would be amazing at. And if you can tell me that story, then my job at that point for me is to say, what's the insight I get from that? What does it really mean? So for example, it's kind of just popped into my head, but this is a real example. Two years ago, or about a year and a half ago, every time that we did a video that involved a grandmother, and my audience is all basically millennial Gen Z women, it would go viral. And we were trying to, so the analytics people were saying, like, it all like, how do you make a great video? It put a grandmother in it. So we tried it, we called it, we literally create a verb called grandmothering. It was like, can we grandmother this? Like, it's a normal story about this, but can we put a grandmother in there? Because we know that'll make it really successful. And it turns out the insight was way more complicated and way more nuanced than that. And so as we dug deeper into the data and we have some good data scientists, what you begin to realize is it was somebody that could tell you later in life that you could live a good life when you were older. And that was of great interest to someone who was 28. So it was like to get from the data to that insight and then to use that insight. And now we know the story that we're telling. It was, to me, a really good example of kind of the blend of data, data turning into insights, insights turning into good storytelling. And I'm glad you touched on the insight piece because a lot of my students don't necessarily have a good grasp on the data itself, but they're very creative. And so they can maybe take a bunch of information and create a story that makes sense for you. And you touched on the insight piece, but can you talk a little bit about how the stories resonate, especially in the work that you do, and how that translates to the audience? Well, one good, so it used to be when I was making only expensive television shows, you really only had one shot, so you would make it and you used all your gut instinct and put this person in this role and told the story and spent six or $7 million on a pilot. And then you said, okay, do people like it? And you'd go into a focus group and you'd see people say things that would seem so obvious. You'd be like, oh my God, I can't believe I missed that. And you're done, you can't do it over again. But we've made about 24,000 videos. So, and we've gotten data from every second of what happens in those videos, from what the resting images to the cadence of the story, to the length, to the topic, to things in there. And you can build profiles over time that really do help you tell those stories. If you can get to the inside, which is if you can take the data and understand what the data means in terms of human condition. And that is, again, I guess I'm repeating myself, but the big gap is what I see in the digital media business is this gap between collecting data, having people, and there's a great area of journalism called data journalism, which I love. If I had to start over, I might do that. Or maybe I'll do it anyway, which is really taking data and telling you graphically, just communicating in an instant what that story is. And to me, that's a form of storytelling. And so if you can tell the story of what, if you can discern the story that that data is telling you, you can actually apply it to creativity and it can give you tremendous ideas. But then beyond that, you need to be creative. So it can't be, it's not a purely mechanical exercise by any means. And on that, along those lines, a lot of the students also often, when you talk about creating a story where students are interested in this idea of creating their own story on social media platforms. And so they put themselves out there in a way that sometimes is very vulnerable, but in an effort to become an influencer. So a lot of students will say to me, how can I tap into this market? So they're very aware that the market exists because they are patrons of this market, but wanting to know, how do I become an influencer? How do I use my story, the way I see the world, to market into becoming a social media influencer? Yeah, I think it's a bad career choice to... We both agreed to that, by the way. Turn myself into one of those. On the other hand, I think I was reading that the soccer player or European football player, Kristen Ronaldo, made something like $78 million a year for his Instagram posts. It's like 90. Is it 90 now? He's raised his rates. But I think it comes down to your ability... Well, first of all, there's a lot of hard work that goes into that. So, and I don't know, UC Davis undergrad doesn't strike me as like, I live in LA. So it's like, I do live. If I'm talking to a group this size, there is half of the people in there that are going like, I think I'm gonna major in being an influencer. So, like when I go up here, I don't really get that vibe. You guys are way smarter than that. But I do think what it really boils down to, and this is a big change in the present state of work, I think will be in the future of work, which is a complete redefinition of what a brand is. And so, a brand is really all about trust. And individuals, and I think I'm a big NBA fan, and so I'm really, over the years, been really struck by how NBA players have done such an amazing job at becoming individual brands. And they've actually taken great power away from the, not a bad thing, from the people who run the NBA, the league, because they are each a sub-brand on their own. And so, when you do think about going forward in the workplace, because of social media, because of how much exposure you have or how exposed you are, you are building your brand, whether you know it or not, every day. Some people have an instinct for building that brand in a way that will be monetizable. But, you know, and there's a couple of strands for that. One is trust, because, you know, in a world where no one seems to be agreeing on what facts are, for example, if you connect with someone on a human level and you trust them, that's valuable. So, if you're someone who could build trust is a big deal. And then, the second thing is like this, and this is the bad part of social media in my mind, which is the aspirational, like, I wish I was that person. Now, there's actually a backlash of that going on, which you guys may be aware of or be a part of, which is, there's a greater, things go in pendulum, there are things that are pendulum and cycle-driven, and there's a much greater affinity now for authenticity of like, my life's not perfect. It actually started with the moms. So moms and social media got very big because they were really saying like, you know, being a mom is really hard and I look like hell. And let's celebrate that. And, you know, their next generation after that was still like, life is perfect, look how fantastic this is, don't you wish you were me. And I think the pendulum is now going much, and I'm seeing just in the analytics that we get, and why Instagram stories, for example, is overtaking Instagram, because it feels much more authentic. And we're actually having to teach, and they're learning pretty quickly like celebrities to be less glamorous, just to be yourself. And once you get used to communicating with somebody, or feeling like you're communicating with somebody who's yourself, you actually build a very authentic brand. And if you're worth trust or you're charismatic, that actually can turn into a career. And you touched on trust, and you touched a little bit on facts. Yeah. Which leads me to think a little bit about the reality and how a lot of us, and me included, look at these stories and think how much of it is fabricated and how much of it is true to life. And when we initially spoke, we talked about how the future of work because of media technology allows us to have experiences at the same time, but not together in the same room. And we, I definitely see a decline in how we work as a group as a result of that, because we have the ability to Skype each other, for example, and not come in for a week or two. But how does that affect the relationships in your offices, and how do you think that'll affect how we relate to each other moving forward in the business world? Yeah, that's a great question. So I try not to be too old school, and I think about, like you all chose to go to college. You could have gone to online college. But you apparently thought that there was something missing about having your entire college experience, experienced alone in your room. And I think that's true about work. So the kind of work that I do, now when we're producing video and TV shows, clearly we can't do that alone. We have to do that together. And I kind of like that's a very collaborative activity, but a lot of people write things and they're in that phase, and or have meetings and you can do them alone. I think there's something, I do think that there's something lost, and the better the technology gets. So it used to be that doing a video conference with like eight different people, let's say, was challenging. Like there'd always be like two of them would be like frozen and you know, one would drop off, and then the screen got so small, like you couldn't see, and it was supposed to switch when you're talking, and like the person talking was like a little tiny. Like it just wasn't physically that easy to do. Now you guys can all fast forward to like, oh, what happens when you can use AR and VR and these great tools where it's 5G, bandwidth is unlimited, and so everything feels instantaneous. Will it replicate the kind of interactions that you have when you're in the same place at the same time as people and things happen? And I will say, being a part of a creative business, and I've gotten credit, and also been denied credit, but I've gotten credit for ideas that were not mine, not intentionally, but it was like, it was because like, we were just in the right place at the right time and somebody said something that I just happened to hear that made me think of like, if you just twisted it this way, it would be great. The challenge I have now, because a lot of my staff, we do employee surveys and my staff, they're all like in their 20s, and they report like a big perk is that you can work at home. So we do let people work from home when they want to. And obviously now there's unusual conditions and like working at home may be a requirement. And I'm always like stunned by that because I thought, isn't it like more fun to go where everybody is, you can hang out, you can interact with people, you can have ideas. There is something I think missed when you are not in the same space at the same time. And I know from management, I managed one point at Fox, I had like people in eight or nine different countries, and I just could not run the place well. It was really hard. And today I have much better technology. I've got people in New York, I've got people in San Francisco, I've got people in London, and I cannot manage them well, nearly as well as the people around me. And they don't feel like they're part of it. So when we're in a world where everybody is like somewhere else, I think that maybe the technology will get so good that the nuance of communication will replace more of that, certainly has. But I think that it's still a challenge when you isolate yourself. And then I read that one of the biggest complaints of millennial workers is that they are lonely. Yeah, they feel lonely. They feel lonely. Yeah, and it'll go like, well, come to work. You feel less lonely. Well, when we get that from, I get that from the students as well, that especially now that I teach a fully online course, I don't get to know those students as well as the students that I am this close to on a regular basis. And they'll often reach out and say, I feel very disconnected, even though you check in regularly and they can see me and we can chat and we can discuss, but it's definitely missing that element. And you touched on that a little bit about how these young folks who are interested in branding themselves, where do you see the disconnect or the differentiation between who you are and your brand? Yeah, certainly that, so from a business point of view, from a work point of view, there certainly is always the question of like your work you and your you you. And so I went through something really interesting a couple of years ago. I hired a bunch of people that were really talented. They would go on camera. They got really popular and they just came in right before social media was a thing. And so their social media got stuck in our social media. And it was like we had cut off their arms and legs. They couldn't leave because they had no following of their own. And so they didn't have, they really had a big, then they had to build it separately. They had a big distinction. Today, it's encouraged that the more blended that is, I think it's the advantage. So it used to be seen as a threat to companies. Like if you had your own social following that was outside of the companies, and I probably felt that way too, like five or six years ago, things have really changed. There's a general understanding that everybody's a brand. Everybody who can and wants to should build their own following and that having that separate following, the separate Twitter voice, whatever, actually increases the overall strength of the central brand. And so it's really, and one thing I would say that's changing and this is just generational. If you look at like say, American the 50s or Japan in the 60s, incredibly hierarchical systems. And so like, and even when I started working, it was like a lowly, like a coordinator, couldn't talk to a vice president and a vice president, couldn't talk to a president. It was like a big deal. There's just a lack of hierarchy now. And so anybody through can DM anybody. You can talk to an incredibly powerful person directly. So the fact that that exists and that's not going away, there's just a great flattening I think of work. And so I think it presents tremendous opportunities for people to accomplish things without the same traditional hierarchical structures. Plus you come armed able to do everything on your own. So you've grown up in an environment where the technology enables one person to start a company. I'm working on a new startup. I don't wanna talk about it, but in the new startup, I'm actually looking around and I'm thinking I could start this company with no capital because I think that I can bolt together pieces of companies from other places who will offer services that I would have had to build myself. And I'm literally with a good friend of mine sitting there going like, I think I could just build this company with just the two of us, this big company with no capital. That's something that really strikes me as like for you guys, that may be the norm or that may be easy to do, which is you can look at the world as a giant Lego kit and you can assemble the Lego pieces in some new and interesting way and make something. And if you feel like you can do that, then working in a company is gonna be a big trade-off. And you're like, well, if I work in a company, they're gonna stick me this cubicle and they want me to do this job and they don't want me to do that. And so there's a point at which you all, many of you might find, I think that's great, by the way, working at a company and learning how big organizations organize themselves is really, really important or interesting. I think it's been really helpful to me to see how a company the size of Fox or I ran a partnership that was through telephone companies. It was like, you know, 400,000 people. Like how does something that big get organized, mind blowing? But then, you know, then to like step back and say, I think I can actually put pieces together myself and replicate this organization through arrangements I make with suppliers of things. It really is the way that iPhone is put together. You know, it's like, it's very, very interesting. So there's gonna be a lot of opportunities for people who are creative in terms of putting the pieces together without having to build them from scratch. And I think that's like super exciting. That's something that just did not exist, you know, when I was thinking about this for the first time. And without divulging too much information about this possible startup, is this something where you'll be working fairly solo, in other words, not with a lot of people around you in a virtual office with folks working for you without a lot of direct face-to-face contact? I need company. So I don't want it to be like- So not for you personally. No, no, I mean, we will often, we are often getting together through Google Hangout and just like turn on Google Hangout and have a chat. But what we're really looking at is all the things that the first time around, I just started up, I raised some venture financing and then my current company bought that company. But that time around, and that was 10 years ago, everything that you wanted to have, you needed to build yourself. So all the pieces had to be constructed. Every single thing that made that company back then, you could just buy off the shelf or make an arrangement to have it supplied off the shelf. And so whether or not, I don't wanna work alone. Like my friends and I wanna work with my friends and I need that. But it's no fun, I mean, without that. But I don't envision myself needing an organization of thousands of people or hundreds of people to accomplish what I think five people could accomplish now. And along those lines, we talked also a little bit about how we can probably attest to this more than most of the audience here, but we are more connected than we've ever been, but have felt more disconnected, I think, than we've ever felt. And as a result of people being able to work independently, not necessarily having to come in, face in work, face to face, we're seeing an industry pop up that we discussed, what we call in real life, where influencers do have an enormous following that perhaps you and I may follow only on Instagram or Twitter, we follow them online, but where they'll have a pop up event where that person will be there and you may not necessarily have particular access to that person, but you'll have access to other people who are also engaged with that person and that person's quote unquote brand. Any thoughts on that and where do you see that going? Yeah, especially like in this particular pandemic time or whatever you would call this thing, this business is about to be, take a real hit, but I guess I'm thinking of the fact that there's so much attention paid now by the brands that support us into creating events or real life events that seem at the surface to be very non-economic. I mean, if you have a television message, you can reach 100 million people, if you have an online, I've got 40 million people coming every month, they can see an ad or a video ad. To put an event seems super labor intensive and I'm not in the events business, it would drive me crazy to do it, but like the amount of interest in trying to replicate or to create a venue where people are actually coming to something, so it's becoming like it's like voting, not voting now because you can vote by mail, but I mean voting meaning like I like you enough that I'll actually go to a physical place where you are and experience you. So we have an event at Popshire called Playground, it's like part play, part being grounded, it's all kinds of things, it's in New York, and we had no idea how many people would show up, and so we did our second one in June, and there were 15,000 women came, and it was not inexpensive. So I myself like, I just don't understand it because I just so hate events, but I was like at this event, I was like this is amazing, like people just really are palpably wanting to like interact with other people and get off their online selves. So again, I'm thinking in terms of work, kind of creating experiences, and they don't have to be huge events, and obviously retail is going through this big issue where like they need to entertain people enough to come to physically to their space, but again, there's lots of creative, analytical, and other jobs that are going to come in terms of people that can put together what I would call the mix between data and creativity and to create these experiences that drive people to come to a place. Since we're coming a little bit close to the end of our time, I was hoping that maybe you could share with our students what some of the exciting things that you see on the horizon that they might not be aware of, and then also some of the challenges that those exciting things might bring. I'm gonna, maybe it's just my mood, but like, so I live in a world where, you know, Google and Facebook swallow everything. It's like the huge giant whale. If I had made physical goods, maybe it would be Amazon, but certainly in a digital media space. And so I'm trying to like figure out, does that mean that there's a lot of opportunities for little interesting things that live at the edges or is everything just gonna be swallowed up? And then I, you know, so the debate going on in politics right now is, do you break up those companies? Do you keep them together? If you break them up, could they compete with similar companies in China and so on? I get all that. I just am living the swallowing up and feeling what that's like. So I'm really curious to see like, does it go on forever and am I just ultimately gonna be consumed? Are we all gonna be consumed? Or then what is the thing that's gonna happen because obviously Facebook is already on the decline? Instagram is probably at the apex. So there's like, we're right around the corner from some other thing. And so if one of you in this room can think about what that other thing is, if I'm still around, I'll come work for you. But it's gonna be a thing because I really feel like we're at that point where these existing platforms are just, not that they're, I mean, they're incredibly innovative. So I'm not saying that they're not innovative. In the past, I think big companies like the phone companies stopped innovating at labs and stuff, but by and large they were too like fat and happy. But these companies still feel like super competitive. And so they're still energized, but they seem to be swallowing everything up. I do think when you see a slowing down at something like Facebook and they're like, thank God we've got Instagram. I think that there's like something else. So I would say to you guys, think of what that is. You could bolt it together with two people, two of you could get together, even one of you, but it's more fun with two. Look around and say I need, like for example, like influencers, if you need influencers there are now at least 10 SaaS platforms that will like provide you influencers. Like you can order influencers the way that you order pizza online. It's insane. You say like I need somebody who like appeals to like Asian men who like golf, who live in the Southern half of the United States. Boom, I got a list of spits out a list of like here's 200 of those. It's crazy. So there's every piece of this little universe you need to build, you can build on your own. And I would say think of what that is and you can also test it without very with very little risk these days by getting the supply on a kind of like on the come basis. And you know, companies will work with you on the come because it's just increasing their market share. When there's 10 SaaS platforms supplying influencers, you can bet that you can get one of those influencers to like discount their price to you and actually give you like test, let you test on the come, for example. And that applies, that's just influencers. There's like tens of other things that you can try using these as I think of them as Lego pieces. This is my raffle time. This student questions or audience questions. That's right, we're just getting started. Now is the fun part and I'll just hold it like this. All right, so as said before, if you have any questions during this time, just go to slido.com on your phone's browser, any browser and type in the code FOWUCD and you can submit questions and you could also vote up the questions that you didn't ask, but you wish you had. But you can't raise your hand because that would be too easy. That's right. We wanna let you guys be as anti-social and anonymous as possible. So be bold, be brave, you could ask whatever. So starting at the very top, we have a handful of people in the audience who would like to know, could one theoretically take the technology and strategies used at PopSugar and apply it to online education to increase engagement with content? I think it's happening. There's a number of companies. I mean, you know, if one has the motivation, you guys know this better than me, but if one has the motivation today and you're not in it for the grades, you can get a complete education for nothing with the best professors in the world. So if there's ever been a revolution of something that would blow people's mind from 100 years ago, is anyone in the world could take a class from Jeanette. And if their own professor of communications is boring, she's not, you could just listen to her. So professors are, you know, we all have those professors that go like, this guy or this woman is fantastic. I've spelled down for the entire class. And we've all had the ones that like, you can't keep your eyes open and you can't understand a word they say. Like today, you actually could pick the ones that make great content. So like, it's already there. And I can speak for myself. I feel, and we didn't touch on this today, but where I'm as a professor now because you're all sitting there with your laptops open, you can look something up just as easily as I can share it with you. So what's happened is I've become a curator of sorts of information, trying to synthesize what I think is important and what I think would maximize not to student interest, but what would be beneficial to the student. So it's really interesting that even in my online courses, I'll often bring in people that I find to be experts in a particular area that do a great job of relaying the information for the students in a way that I could have created another video, but why when this wonderful person who I've learned from can speak to my students directly. So I look at it as bringing in an invited guest, like I would for my face-to-face classes online, and it's much more easy to navigate and coordinate. I'd say the one thing that I wouldn't apply from my current company is, and it's not just my company, there's a whole group of companies where we've just become too reactive. So we know so much about what you're interested in that we just want to feed you more of what you're interested in. And I say that as a self-criticism. I mean, that's how we make money. So when you actually come to a place to really learn something, I think there's a lot to be said for, that's maybe not the time to do that, that you actually want to hear from someone who's really has studied and learned something rather than us just trying to click bait you into like reading more content or watching another video. So I would say the lesson maybe from companies like mine is like don't apply that to this great world of education. The theory and research are important. Not always as exciting as the click bait, but just as needed, just as necessary. I like the honesty. The next question that has shot up to the top is for David, which is what advice would you give to someone who is seeking an entry-level production job at a major media studio like Fox? Man, it has to be a major media studio. Yes. Well, a major one. I was also gonna ask if you wanted the honor of just ripping that down before it completely falls, but it looks like it's a fine job on its own. I like the tension, it'll keep you rolling. There's an over-under when it's gonna fall. So I'm just a big believer in like get in anywhere. It doesn't matter. Just like take the worst job. First of all, the pay in your first five jobs doesn't matter. And when you think about it, now it would be the equivalent of somebody saying when you're a kid, was your allowance like $5 or $5.25, who cares? It was $5.25 or whatever, it doesn't matter. Like find a place that's doing something really interesting and one thing that's always still stunting me by the way from students and actually job applicants is they'll hit me on LinkedIn or send me a text or whatever and they'll say like, hey, are there any jobs? Which is the worst question you can ask somebody. Like if I don't have a job, the last thing I want is somebody ask me if there's a job. But if you've done your research and you see that there's a job and you've figured out a great story to tell me about why that job should be yours, I actually will pay attention to that. And so, and then we'll say, so soon we'll say like, oh, I noticed that you are looking for us such and such. And it blows my mind because like today, when I was looking for jobs, you had no idea who had a job. But today, every corporate site will tell you every job that they have. So if you find something that is remotely, a company that's remotely interested in you or very interested in you, just try to get that job. Like don't worry about what that job is because again, you're in a very non-hierarchal generation. It's not like it used to be where if you were the low person on the totem pole, you'd never speak to the vice president or the senior vice president or whatever. But today, I hear from everybody, like there's no hierarchy. Anybody feels perfectly free to come, stick their head in my meeting or whatever, interrupt me, like no one cares. And that's actually healthy, I mean, other than being too distracted, it's very healthy in that there's really a lot fewer rules. I won't say there's no rules, but there's a lot fewer rules. I remember when I was in college, my roommate was a hair washer and she wanted to become a hairdresser or a beautician or whatever you call it. And they said like, it was a fancy shop over the hills called Monogatois. And they said, no, no, the customers in this shop will never accept that a hair washer is gonna become like whatever you call the person who does your hair. Obviously not an issue for me. But that doesn't exist anymore, that really has changed. And so I have a great record of like assistance that I've had and I will tell them, and I think I'm probably above average in this, but most people will, you could sit in on any meeting I have you want, you can, I mean, my students have my passwords, they can clean out my bank account, no one's done it yet. They can take notes anywhere, they can listen to every phone call, I'll put it on a speaker phone. I mean, if they're gonna put in the time and they get their work done and I tell them like, you can learn my job in a year, then leave me and go do something else. So it's get in with people who are willing to do that, first of all. Don't worry about the title, don't worry about the job. And just find a place where you think there's a path or if you're chance to interact with people who are doing really interesting things and eventually you'll get there. I would add also that sometimes an entry level job is something where you're literally fetching coffee, making copies and a lot of internships end up looking like that for some of our students, they don't utilize their skills very well. But I always tell my students that that's still an opportunity if you make it into one. So if you're fetching coffee for someone and my students who are here have heard the story, if you're fetching coffee for someone regularly, it's really up to you in that position to at some point say, hey, latte lady, would you mind spending five minutes with me to talk to me about what you're looking for in someone in this position or how did you come to be in this position? What was your segue into where you are now and where would you like to be and where do you see this going in the next five years? So you create those opportunities for yourselves sometimes in a situation that doesn't necessarily open it up for you. So it sounds like you're in a very open situation where you allow that for. Well, I got the benefit of, I mean, I was the first, I mean, so I did some weird things. I was like a successful corporate lawyer and I quit and I became essentially a paralegal at a movie studio because I had that philosophy like I just want to get in and do something different. And I was filling out triplicate forms, literally that's what I was doing. I don't know if they know what that is. I was filling out forms that had a little thing to make a copy and then sticking them in a notebook and then handing them to somebody. That was my job all day long, that's all I did. And I knew how to work the copy machine. And so a group of the big executives were gonna go through this big deal. It was like the first time that Fox was gonna sell like a whole package of movies. I think it was like then it was the USA network. And they were sitting there at night and they were like talking about the deal and they need to make copies and they like didn't know how to use the copy machine. And so I said, well, I'll make the copies for you. So like worse than getting coffee, like making copies and people don't even make copies anymore but back then you made copies. And so I made the copies and then they said, will you look at this? And I like, and then the next day I know like I was in the meeting. Like they had the meeting the next day and it was in the same. They go, well, why don't you come on in with the meeting? And my life was never the same after that. So like, yes, I was like that's, I was a glorified paralegal who quit or a lawyer quit become a glorified paralegal. I made copies for a bunch of executives. They invited me to a meeting and then they just all assumed almost George Costanza like from Seinfeld like that I belong there. So they thought I was supposed to come. I don't even think they invited me to be nice. They just thought I was in the group. And that was it. That was like a huge break for me. One lone clap. More claps. This next question is really interesting, I think, which is what general impressions did you guys notice of that episode of Black Mirror Band or Snatch, which was an interactive piece of media that was arguably simultaneously used by Netflix to collect data. So if this sounds to me like a question about people being suspicious about companies collecting data. You're probably correct. And not a question about like, what did I think of Band or Snatch? And you didn't think they'd be interested in this. Well, there's always the conspiracy people and the people that- Raise your hands, conspiracy. So how many of you are like very concerned about the data that's being collected about you? So that's the thing. So when you get to that website and it's like, oh, because there's a new Privacy Act in California and there's actually one around the world now or in Europe and you get to that and it said like, you know, that annoying thing comes up and said, you know, like, can we use your cookies essentially? How many of you say no? And how many say yes? And it's interesting. So what concerns me about this is so like we all, like most of you I assume are Netflix subscribers. Okay, yeah, they got it everybody. And you notice that what's on your screen or at least I'm very conscious of what's on. So sometimes I pretend to be, well, I don't, sometimes I am me and sometimes I pretend to be my kids and I just want to see what's on their screen. Like if I say like, okay, my daughter's Cara and I say like, who are you and I say I'm Cara and I go on. And wow, like what popular on Netflix? What a lie. I mean, like it's popular if you're David Grant on Netflix. Like they're popular on Netflix is very different. So what I do, it does bother me. I don't generally care. Maybe it's my generation, like, you know, my life's an open book. You can, like I said, my assistant have my passwords but you can collect data on me. I say okay because I'm in the business and I go like, okay, that's more money. You know, people stop saying, okay, it's going to be harder for me to make a living. But this bubble of the truth is really bothersome to me. So I do think, so somebody collecting data and then deciding what it is that I want to watch. The truth of what I would be interested in or the truth of what's popular on Netflix, I find really creepy. And then when I think about what's going on in politics today, I then sort of generalize that to the world of like these bubbles or these sort of closed loops where you're in somebody's algorithmic loop and you're in a reality that could be different than like my daughter watching in the next room. And you know, when I think about like how a country or a democracy, you know, has works together on things when we're watching this different or experiencing this different sense of the truth and the truth that this is Netflix. These are supposedly not bad guys. These are like neutral-ish guys. I mean, maybe good guys, it doesn't seem like a bad place, but they're trying to make me eat more stuff and they're doing it by telling me what I want to watch and I just find that really, really scary. So I don't know, does that, if better snatch is the way of doing it, I think it goes way beyond better snatch. And I mean, we, every time we log in and search for something, it's collecting information about us, it's collecting data. I often share with my students, I was doing an interesting research part project on how partners feel about their partner's porn use. And so you can imagine what I started to get when I just was searching for my own stuff. It now thought that I was very interested in certain types of porn. And so I had to no longer allow my child, who at the time was nine, to use my laptop because I would get the strangest pop-ups. And I asked my chair, who do I notify at the university so that they're aware that this is for research and I don't get in trouble. And that's when I became... You used your personal account for this. No, my UCD account. Worse. Right. And it's when I started to get the pop-ups that I realized I was in trouble. And that's when I became really aware of how I was being watched and how I was being monitored and how this, I was embarrassed really because I thought there's this thing out there that thinks this is what I'm into and who do I talk to about this? And so it's a really interesting thing to think about. And David and I, when we chatted, we thought, oh, you're so used to this. This has always been your reality where I honestly, when the internet came about, I said, ah, it's a fad. I said that. And now I can't imagine my life without it. And so I have to remind myself very often that most of my students have grown up with it. This is the reality that they've known. And so to me, it's always very curious when you become aware that you're constantly being watched. But on the other side, every time we walk into a quote, unquote, real-life store, we're also being tracked. It's the stores are checking to see what time you walked in, where did you linger, how long did you look at a particular shelf. So all of that data is being collected at all times. So I think we've lived in that reality for quite some time. And I think that once we went online, we became more aware of that existence and the fact that we're being tracked at all times. I don't know if that counts. Right, right. Creepy. There's so many questions here that we're unfortunately not gonna get through them all. So I'll just keep going with the top. This is switching gears a little bit. Another opinion question. Thoughts on TikTok? What do you think of its position and where it will go? I love TikTok. I absolutely love TikTok. So they came up with something that's really ingenious, and I have to say as a media person, which is so ingenious in that it sort of recycled something. When you used to like, back in the day, you turn on the TV and something would be on. And you go like, and if it was on the right channel, you're like, oh, okay. And you probably still do that, but I have a smart TV. So when I turn on my TV, it's just as a Roku screen. And I have to make some decisions like before I wanna watch something. I have to say like, okay, like, am I feeling like Netflix? I wanna watch, what do I wanna do? TikTok, no worries. Like the minute you turn it on, you're in. And it's, I do love the fact that now it will be corrupted. It may be corrupted now in terms of data, you know, leakage and all that, but I don't know. But I mean, it will be corrupted in that. My world of corruption is advertisers. Advertisers pay my bills. Yet I'm constantly at war with my clients because what my clients want me to do and what my users want me to show them are rarely the exact same thing. And so what I love about TikTok at this point in its evolution is that it really just focused on like, it just wanna have a good time. It has unleashed some incredible creativity. I mean, some of the special effects and so on. I'm just blown away. And we're trying to grow our TikTok audience. There's no, we're not making any money out of it because we just wanna really wanna understand like, you know, how to have fun and how to just get back to that real sense of delight that you get when you flip through it. But I can tell you, cause I know the TikTok executives that, you know, they're going to be under, they are under massive pressure to make money. They're owned by a Chinese company, Bite Dance. And that is a serious company. There's like, they're like really focused on making money. And so they're looking at a lot of ways to monetize and I'm really curious to see how long the joy can last. But right now it's just pure joy. And I get like, whenever I'm feeling like kind of depressed or just like, I just like, it makes me happy. I don't know how you feel. Totally different view on that because I have a 13 year old boy who that's all he looks at is TikTok. And so besides, the one good thing is that now he's into some really good 80s music because it's recycled through TikTok. But as someone who studies misinformation online, I'm always sort of surprised what he comes home telling me that's information from TikTok. And so I won't share some of that here because it's quite frightening though that a 13 year old is getting views on the world and information about what's happening in the world from TikTok. So it's supposed to be fun but when you're a young person and this is how that's the platform that they're using to communicate with each other. So they'll send messages through the platform as well but that's their information source. And so people are already utilizing it as a means of spreading information that's not true to our young folk. Yeah, I think that's probably true. Well, so I think that's true of every platform. I'm trying to think of one that doesn't have that issue. No, no. But it still has the joy to it and it's kind of like its core purpose was for joy and just fun. I was a 13 year old. I have no joy. There's no joy. So there's something to be said for that. But yes, I mean, inevitably if it is popular and it's now gonna be corrupt. So yes, we know where it's going but like enjoy it while you can. Next question and the banner snatch question person did a post follow up saying I really did wanna know your general impressions. Cry face, Moji, cry face, Moji, I'm sorry. You can see me afterwards. The next question at the top is I think it seems geared towards David again is is data or projected earnings secondary to an instinct you might feel about a good story, i.e. passing up on stories that you know are good because of analytics? So you hit on, that's a good question. That's actually the core of what I am struggling with and actually why I'm gonna wanna start a new company. I think, so there was a point I would say in what I'll call the independent digital publishers, the BuzzFeeds, the Pop Shedders, et cetera, Foxes where we could, where the business was good enough for us to afford to do both of those things. We did stories that were data driven and advertiser directed and we did stories that were or video story, cause you can write a post, it's very simple, but video is much more expensive that were purely like what is interesting to our audience. Now we never did and this is always, we didn't ever do enough or we don't ever do enough for what I call real journalism, which is real reporting, which is going out and investigating. We just, as a business, we can't do that. So hats off to the New York Times, which is now being accused of swallowing all other media, but they've actually built a machine that's big enough and powerful enough to do that. But there's very few of those. You can count them on one hand. So I'd say that lately to survive, the independent publishers like my company have gone too far to the side or have had to go too far to the side to be data driven to feed you what you want, to give you what we think you'll consume more of and then judge by how many people clicked, how many people, how many page views, how many unique visitors, because that's how we make money. So it's very difficult. There's a move for a lot of companies to create subscription opportunities. So 299, 399, 499, 599, but like, and your generation is very subscription friendly, which is great. You buy things and you forget about it. And it doesn't seem like a lot and we tell you like, oh, it's just like, it's a vente latte once a week, like how big of a deal is that? And you go, yeah, you're right and you pay. But the number of things that people will really pay for is still very, very tiny. And so we are caught in this very difficult position of saying we want it to be more informative. And actually the founder of my company really does care about that. Lisa Sugar is the founder of PopTrigger. There's a sugar person. But it's very, very challenging to not fall into the trap of I need to generate page views. I need to generate views. And this is how I do it. I don't have deep reporting resources. I can actually cheat in a way with data because I can get so smart about what you want to see. And so it's like Netflix feeding me what it thinks I want to see. And that is a big challenge. So I would say that I would admit that we've had to go too far to the side of actually being data driven. But would you say that's very different from if it bleeds it leads, which has been network news for as long as it's been news? Yeah, well, I mean, you know, local news has been that for years. So I think that's something slightly different. It used to mean something slightly different, which is it's how do you take a story that you've reported and tell it in a way that's sensational enough to get you to read it or watch it. And I understand that. But what really what's happening in this sort of independent world is people are just curating and writing about what they see and they're good. So they understand like, one thing they do is they know their audience. So they go like, my audience loves X and they'll just really just repurpose or add just enough to create originality. And the problem is it's very difficult to tell when that becomes the economic basis of your company to fund the kind of reporting that goes out and like spends like, you know, you'll talk to a reporter in the New York Times and she'll say like, oh, I spent two years on this story. Like that would bankrupt my company like in a very short amount of time. So that's something that's not been solved. And if it bleeds it leads, I'm totally fine with if the story is genuinely good reporting. I don't, you know, to say it in the most sensationalistic way you can. But if it's really just regurgitating what's already out there, which is a huge aggregating and curating what's out there, I think that's like a real problem when you fall and if that's your only move, that's really difficult. So thank you Facebook and Google because they've taken all my money. And the next question is, do you think that graduate school be that PhD, Masters, MBA, JD, whatever is necessary and or helpful to work in media or marketing? Or do you think it's better to set your sights on just getting a really powerful, valuable internship out of college? So I have three minds that one is I'm the person who pays for these graduate educations for my kids and man, wow, costly. So I started out saying to my kids like, hey, I want you to all go to graduate school. I want you to do this, I want you to do that. And like the bill has started coming in, I would say like, do you really think that you're gonna get something out of that graduate school? So there's a bunch of issues that go along with that. One is, are you gonna be saddled with a lot of debt? You know, if we had life the way I would like it, you would not be saddled with a lot of debt. Maybe we'd make a pure decision. And I just feel like learning things is just gonna make you better. And so yes, practically speaking, I don't need an MBA or, well I do need some MBAs, but I don't need PhDs. I don't know many people in Hollywood or the entertainment industry who say they need a PhD, except for data science, which is a big thing. So yes, for there you need something really good. But when I'm looking at resumes, I'm really impressed with people that had the discipline and the drive and the curiosity to really study something deeply. So I have a bias towards that. And really, I don't know if it's logical, but I just think that I just want really, really smart, curious people. And so it's like, I don't know, it's like a marker. Like this person actually got into something so deeply and accomplished so much, they got a PhD in it. Like I'm just impressed with that. Like what could they do if they get a PhD in the thing that I want them to do? So it's really just about, I think I'd translate to basic human traits. Do you have the drive and the curiosity and the energy to really get into something that deeply and master it? And like that, or I have interviewed, I've hired an Olympic athlete. Like I was just like, okay, you've got the job. Like how you could do that just like blows my mind. Or I actually, in one case, remember I think I hired a black belt in, I forget what martial art was. It wasn't karate, but whatever. It was one of those martial arts. And I was just saying, wow, I was really impressed with like somebody who could get a black belt. So to me like a black belt is like a PhD. Or being like having, I just hired someone recently who was a star in the UCLA gymnastics team. I was like, whatever you have in you that enabled you to do that, if I could just turn it to like this other thing you're gonna be amazing. So like you can't have too much education in my book. And I would say it depends greatly on, as David said, if there's something you're very passionate about and you want to learn more about it and it's not going to saddle you with additional enormous because it's getting to be, for many students it's getting to be unattainable to go to graduate school that if you're interested in the field it's not necessary. And very often if you're good enough if you have the drive, very often companies will pay for you to get an MBA. And we have wonderful programs, professional programs that students can attend while working for the organization that's providing that opportunity for them. So I only recommend, if you're interested in the field I only recommend that you do it if, as David said you have a passion for it and you know something you want to look into deeply but it's absolutely not necessary to get in to the field and to be successful in the field. And as I said I often recommend that my students take the opportunities provided especially by some of the bigger corporations to earn their degree while they work for them. So if you stand out they will invest in you to into a specific area. And by then you might have a better understanding of where in the communication world you best fit because a lot of times students come out and think that a job is a certain way and it requires certain skills or it looks like a certain day to day. And once they're in it they quickly realize that that's not the case at all. So we are often, I know for speaking for myself as a first gen college student I had no clue what some of these positions would look like in the real world. It was only mediated examples or things that I read in books or saw in magazines. And when I interned I realized whoa this is nothing like what I read about. It's not as glamorous as it seems at all. And so getting a good feel for what skills you need, where you do best. In other words, what are your strengths that you bring to the table and cultivate those? The next question that's at the top right now is a big one. And it's in your opinion what do you think the next big trend in media will be think quibi by Meg Whitman? Jeff Katzenberg might argue that quibi is also by Jeff Katzenberg. I don't think quibi is the next big thing, but that's me. So the thing that we're in the middle of now is the rise of the individual. And the individual as a marketing, it's a one person marketing machine, influence machine, content creation machine. And again, I've got a long perspective. So the fact that Steven Satterberg makes a movie with iPhones, and it's a fantastic movie. The fact that again, it's like one person, I know we're going back to this, can do things that used to take hundreds or thousands of people to do. And so I think that is a part of everything that's the next big thing. And so what it is, it causes like big institutions to think about how they amass their power and then individuals thinking about what they can do. And so in the media space, the power of the individual as a marketing icon, let's say, talk about celebrity, to actually make a project go, to like step in front of a project and say, I'm part of this now. And all of a sudden five different streaming companies want to buy it. The power of pop sugar actually to attach itself, we're a part of some television programs where we know we can bring an audience of 40 million people to watch something. That just didn't exist before. So it's that, so I know I'm being a little abstract, because I'm not like identifying, like it's this grid thing over there, like, oh, everybody do that red thing. It really is about, in my mind, what individuals are capable of doing in influencing people and making things happen and starting companies in making their own Instagram stories which have millions of views. It's the way that technology has enabled individuals to make expressions on a flat basis with the biggest companies in the world, is just a huge change. And so if you figure out like what you can do with that, you know, there's just endless opportunity. I would say that I would hope the next big thing is that someone would figure out how we could do better about what, again, this is what I studied. So what information is shared with what audiences? So who gets to decide what gets broadcast? Who gets to decide what stories to tell? Who gets to decide what becomes popular? Who gets to decide what stories are important and whose voices are heard and whose are marginalized? And so when I, again, said that the internet was a fad, part of the excitement was that it would democratize voices that we would get to hear from everyone. That's not what it's turned out to be. And I keep waiting for the trend where people rise up and go, this isn't what we signed up for. And I'd like to see a movement towards that, whether that'll happen, I don't know. But that's, I would hope that this generation who seems to be very empathetic and very open to more viewpoints would value that. And so I'd be interested in knowing beyond the mainstream and who decides what's mainstream. We only have time for maybe two or three more questions top. So I'll try to make them good ones. Another question. I'll try. Another one. Back to Bandersnatch, if you want. Back to Bandersnatch. That would be, maybe later. Another one that a lot of people really want to know about is how would you say that net neutrality has influenced working in media? So philosophically, I think net neutrality is hugely important. But I don't think there is or has been net neutrality for, I think it's just a hollow term. It's more recently been formally under attack. But in essence, if you are Facebook or if you're Google and you control that algorithm and that distribution, there's no such thing as net neutrality, I guess is my answer. So I do think there's a possibility of, and again going back to my obsession with individuals, individuals can break out and reach millions of people by being really clever, charismatic, and understanding how to use the medium. So I think that that's something that's never happened before in our history, so it's amazing. One person can rise up at Tavi or somebody can rise up and all of a sudden that person is known by the whole world in a matter of days. So that's never happened, but in terms of who controls the pipes, the pipes are all under control by very large, powerful, and smart companies. And so it's really about watching those companies rather than, in my mind, rather than obsessing about what the exact net neutrality rules are. I don't even think they're enforceable. Sorry to be so cynical, but I just think, I mean, I don't think it's all bad and I love my business and I actually love what I do. But I do think that the reality is that there is not a level playing field known as net neutrality. Yeah, I wouldn't disagree with that. And I think even though it tried to start out that way, I don't think it ever truly was because even when any particular platform had an ability to rise up, you still had to have the know-how to make it viable for people to access. And so you could put something out, but how do you get people to access it and to view it and to then further that on? I don't think that ever existed. So down. Askers not be questioned. Well, there is another. Any questions? This is also a downer, so. I don't know if I'd call it a downer, but some people in the audience want to know some of us are not engaged with social media. Is there a cost to this willful act? Are we totally screwed? So I'm really biased. I think you're fine. I think you're 100% fine. It depends on what, I mean, if you want to do something with your life that requires influence, then you're not fine. And it's interesting when, so now just on a job level, this was just being like a regular media job level, everybody checks your following. They check, it's like you're rating. And so it's unavoidable if you want to be in that world to feel the pressure. Obviously, you guys probably all know about fraud, about buying followers, all that good stuff. It's just the pressure. And actually when I dig deep into the influencer business, what's really kind of fascinating and weird and depressing to me is there's this whole world of real engagement, meaning somebody really loves what you're doing. And then you do something that to make money and advertiser brands as we do this for me. And then people, your audience is very smart and they go like, I'm not really interested in that. And particularly on Instagram Stories, and we make thousands of Instagram Stories and we make millions of dollars on Instagram Stories. And it's a terrible product for an advertiser. Don't tell them. But the problem is like people really, you have to touch that bubble. And if you think you're gonna get an ad, you're not gonna touch that bubble. So I think that if you have in that world, if you need that influence and you treat it with respect, meaning you're authentic to it, it can be very powerful. If you're not in a world where you need that and you just like, you want to learn information, you wanna study something, you wanna take, like don't skip it all. It's like fine, it's like, I don't think it's a force for social good or bad, it's just a thing. And there's like, I don't like shellfish, I just don't. Like people think I'm missing this whole part of life. I'm fine, I'm okay, I don't need to do shellfish. I think the social media is like that to me. For me, the short answer is no as well. I mean, the students of mine who will intern, sometimes it's a personal connection and that connection will call me and say, these young folks, they don't just answer the email, they're on the media things. They're on the media things for so many hours and it's a waste of time. What do they get from the media things? But these are folks who are in the operations of the day-to-day of the business, whereas I think that in the bigger picture, big corporations understand that you need to have a presence. And so at least understanding the language, having an understanding of how they work is helpful, but only if that's, I'd like to say if that's your jam, if it's not and that's not an area that you're into, I don't think that it's necessary. And the last question that I'll ask, I'll roll two of the top questions into one, is what are some valuable skills that you believe students should have or polish if they intend on pursuing work within the media industry and just general advice on someone graduating from college when it comes to finding their path in this industry? This is something I think about a lot, not only because I have kids in that age range, but also I hire or have hired a ton of people. And it really comes down to this really simple, in my business, because you're not going to, God forbid, operate on somebody's heart or et cetera, or try to launch a rocket, you're going to do media. One is to tell a good story. You'd be surprised at how many people cannot tell a good story. I'd say 90% of the people, and this is a storytelling business, and you're listening to a party or whatever, and you're gonna make, dude, that's a terrible story. If you can't tell a good story, I don't know whether that's learned or just genetic or both of it, but if you can't tell a good story, you're in trouble in this business. Secondly is learn how to write. I'm just amazed, I'm very picky when it comes to writing. I consider myself a writer, I love words. And when I find someone in my company can actually write, I just get so excited. And I used to be when the company got big, I stopped, I used to rewrite everybody's press release, rewrite everybody's script, rewrite this, rewrite that, because I couldn't stand the writing. And when I'd read great writing in the New York Times or a great book, I'd just go, it's such a miracle. Where are these writers? So learn to write. Learn to persuade people. Like so much of getting something done is just persuading a group of people. So in college, it's just a great time to learn, this is the problem I have with the work at home and the online learning and all that, is I don't think you get, I don't know how you learn to persuade people if you're working on your own. So if you can learn to persuade a group of people, you can do anything. I mean, that's probably the number one skill. And then, you know, I mean, this is all cliche, but just like, it doesn't matter what subject you're learning, like the energy that it takes to actually think about something hard, I certainly, like it's a light switch went off from me way too late for college for sure, of like when I really was thinking about something. And honestly, it wasn't until I was at UC Davis Law School and I wrote a law review article, and I had a smart editor, and they were constantly like challenging every single point that I was making. And I'm going, wow, like this is just some dumb article. And I was spending months on this thing. And so, and that was the point of my life. And it was like pretty late. And other things happened even later. But that point, I realized that you could actually like think about something really hard and break through and do a breakthrough and get like way better at it. So, if you can think, and it doesn't matter what you study, whether it's literature, politics, science, the STEM disciplines, I think that if you get those things out, if you're going to an industry that doesn't have a very particular skill set, like a neurosurgeon or whatever, or a nuclear scientist and so on, like you're going to something where really it is about, am I persuasive? Can I write? Can I present? Can I think about something deeply? And then the creativity part in the media industry is a very rare skill. Certain people, it seems easy. It's hard to describe, I call it the shout, like most of my good ideas come on a runner in the shower. And I think it's just because it's like somehow the ability to free your mind up enough from like what's going on at that moment. I do a lot of walking meetings now. Just say like, just put your phone back, put your phone in your pocket, put your, let's just walk around the block. And I find like it's even the movement of your body takes you out of like this anxiety in your head or at least that I have that gets so many distractions. So if you can learn to focus actually, to think about something hard and then create something new out of that, that's creativity. So if you can get that in college is like an awesome place to learn. Unfortunately, I did not learn that in college, but you guys should, because I wasted a lot of years not doing that. And definitely it's a time to do it. I would agree with all of that and add that, especially in the media world, it's really important if you're going to be persuasive that you know and understand your audience. And so that's one key piece that seems to be missing quite often. Who are the people that you're trying to influence or persuade? And then what are you exactly trying to get them to understand or do? So sometimes people are persuasive without having a real understanding of what the end goal is. And so for a lot of my students I ask them to critically think. And that takes a lot of, as you said, just time to be still. We've moved into a space where we all want to do a lot of things at the same time, and it doesn't work well. So we need people to sit down and be able to, in order to be creative, need to be critical thinkers. And to question what you're taught and what you're told and what you've read and think about it from a bigger perspective and what does that mean and how does that apply to you and what you know? And also, in addition to that, adding to be curious. I think some of us are so focused on what the next step is going to be that we lose sight of what we're interested in and what we're curious about because we don't think it's going to lead to something bigger or something that'll support us. But we never know. We never know what interest is going to be the one that opens the door for us. And I could speak to that personally. Furthermore, I would add that it's really important that you give yourself an opportunity to think about what success looks like to you. Because we've been sort of attuned to what that is and what that looks like. And it's really quite different for all of us. So in that field, in the media field, we require all types. So not everybody has to be, we need the folks to do the project management. We need folks to run the finances. We need folks who can keep the very creative ones in line. And so there's a space for people in every industry. And we require different strengths. And so knowing what those are, I wish I would have known that in college. I had no clue. So like you, I wish I would have been able to have a better understanding of what I brought to the table a lot earlier than I did. Well, before we move on to our last few notes, can we please get a big round of applause for this amazing session? And as we get the raffle set up, if you could all take a brief moment to at least look at the brief survey on slido.com, it's exactly where you were just submitting questions. It will be open until Monday. Although if you feel like you're gonna forget in 30 seconds, once you leave, perhaps best to do it now. It's very short, but it really, really helps us. Do you want a hand? Yes. And if you want a hand, the jar. Yes. So I'm told the prize for this is a private screening of Bandersnatch with me. Who's gonna get lucky? Did you watch it? You know, I started it and I realized I don't like interactive storytelling. Like, tell me a good story. Like, I don't wanna work. Yeah, but anyways, the winner of the, so I read the name? Yeah. Mayrav Revivo is our winner. Mayrav Revivo. There you go. So thank you all for coming out this evening, given that it's week nine and the pandemic. It really means a lot and we appreciate what an engaged and attentive crowd this was. Tell your friends about this series. We do talks on a variety of different topics. The next one I believe will be on science fiction and how science fiction influences real world policy. So word of mouth. Further discussion of Bandersnatch. Further discussion to be included. Word of mouth is very powerful for us. You can scan those QR codes up there if you're interested to find links to all of our relevant websites and social media pages. So thank you all again.