 Thank you. All right, how's everybody doing today? That was extra week. So we're gonna try that again. So how's everybody doing today? We good? Good, good. Well, I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to have this opportunity to be able to share with you today. The project that we're working on, we believe is transformational and so we're gonna talk today. We're gonna talk about rebrand cities, but we're gonna talk about co-creation and and we want to pull you into the conversation and get you to think about how we can design stuff that actually matters. How many people want to design stuff that matters? Okay, all right, so that should be about everybody in the room. The couple people that didn't raise their hand, but we know in your heart you really want to design stuff that matters anyway, all right? So we're gonna include you in that, but we're excited and we're excited to be able to get started today. So I have a short period of time to be able to make an impact, but I want you to know I've been imported all the way from Detroit to deliver this message. So I'm super excited to be here with you today and to be able to share. When we start today, I wanted to share this song real quick. I was watching Netflix and it was, what is it? It's David Letterman's new show on there and I heard this artist and her name is Marianne. I forgot her last name, but she had this song. I just thought it was awesome and the song is called MIR. So I just wanted to kind of tie it in there real quick. All right. Okay, so we're gonna jump into it. So as we start today and first talking about rebrand cities, I want you to go on a journey with me and there's a date that is forever etched in my mind and the date is September or November 13th, 2011 and this date is a date that I'll never forget in life. I turned on the TV with a cold winter night and I turned on the TV. When I turned the TV on it was the first time I had seen a group of African-Americans on primetime TV who weren't athletes, who weren't entertainers and it was something positive and it was a conversation that was happening in barbershops in Detroit in the beauty salons in Oakland, California and it was a conversation that we were able to make mainstream and what it was is that it was CNN's Black in America 4, the New Promise Land Silicon Valley and so they took eight entrepreneurs from around the nation and we lived in this 1,300 square foot house and six guys shared one bathroom. I'm gonna kind of leave that at that. But if you notice the people that are in this picture, I just happen to be one of the eight people and they put the smartest people next to Soledad O'Brien. That's the reason why I'm right next to her right there. It's not because I have on glasses, not to bounce the picture out. You're supposed to laugh with me on now, but it's okay. But really as we began to start this changed my life because being a part of this, it really helped me to understand one thing for sure is that I learned this term called meritocracy and I had never heard this term before and the term meritocracy means that the smartest people in the room get the opportunity and we were interacting with billionaires and BCs and what I realized is that the smartest people don't get the opportunities. What I realized is that relationships matter. What I realized is that people that got opportunities, excellence is the bottom floor anyway. You have to be excellent. But when everybody is excellent, what happens? Somebody's father can make a call or someone who had the relationship can open up doors. And so I began to realize that access was a real problem. And it being a real problem made me understand that there is a divide. There's an economic divide. There's a technology divide. And what this ultimately means is that there's the opportunity for us to create a permanent underclass. And so that really propelled me to do the work that I'm doing today. I want to thank a good friend of mine, John. He's in the front row. Everyone in the WordPress community knows John. John, can you raise your hand real quick? All right. I call him a mentor. He tells me stuff that I don't like, which is good. And I actually listen to him. Right? Because he has a lot of wisdom. And so I thank him for that. So, so our project is called Rebrand Cities. It's a global civic project. We have an audacious goal to get 10,000 businesses that are offline, online. And I believe that if you have a dream, you need to dream big. If you can do this in your own power, if you can do it in your own ability without other people, then your dream is too small. And so what I want to challenge you with today is I want to challenge you to dream bigger than what you're dreaming. I want to challenge you to get out of your comfort zone. We want to get you comfortable with being uncomfortable. And so this goal is a very uncomfortable goal, but we wanted to push the envelope and we wanted to challenge people. And so our goal is to be able to get them online. So I'm an engineer by trade, have an MBA, and so data is important. So, so when we started this project, what we looked at, we looked at some data points. And we said, OK, there are 28 million small businesses in America. This number, we've also done analysis in Europe, and I should have threw that number up there. But this number is not just a local domestic number. So if you look at this, the 28 million small businesses, what we realize is that that 46% of these businesses have absolutely no website. And that was a watershed moment for us because we're like, it's 2017 when we actually came across this data and realized that there was a lot of businesses that were not online. We also realized that 55% of businesses are cash only. And for me, I was blown away because it is something that's just a part of who I am. And so as we began to look at the information, we began to realize that there's a lot of opportunity to be able to elevate small business and to be able to tell tremendous stories. And so as a part of this, what we realized is that there is a divide, right? And so when we talk about the digital divide, what I want to talk about is I don't want to talk about what one group has or what another group doesn't have. What I want to talk about is I want to talk about the divide being the difference. So a divide is really about a difference. That means that some groups have more information in other groups. Some groups have more access than other groups. And so as we begin to talk about it, we begin to think about what really matters. So in really kind of crushing this digital divide and being able to help get small businesses that are offline online, what really mattered? And so we thought about it, does race matter? So should one race versus another race or once, you know, should, should there be a difference in terms of having access? What about cities? Should one city have more access than another city? Because that city happens to have more resources or more access to capital. We begin to think about income. Should one group have greater opportunity to be able to generate more income than another group? And what we began to realize is that there were things that were there. There was this imbalance. Technology is not the same in terms of if you go into an urban community. There are students that we're working with at Cody High School in Detroit, Michigan, where that school was considered a dropout factory, right? They had their times where they're working on assignments on cell phones. So imagine having to turn in an assignment and do a paper on a phone versus doing it on a laptop, right? And so you begin to see that there are some differences. But what we ultimately realized is that we were in the people business. They asked Howard Schwartz, the former CEO of Starbucks, I believe he just recently stepped down. And what we realized that at the center of what we do is that people, we are in the people business and it's really about helping real people get opportunities to be able to tell their stories. And so this is this is one of our activation in Chicago. And what you'll also notice is that we pulled in the people who were remotely working with us too. So if you look at these screens, if you look at the screen right here, you have all of our developers who are pointing as well. So when we think about inclusion, we think about space. We think about distance. We think about remote workers as well too. Here's one of our activations in California that we just did in Los Angeles. And we believe that there's a diverse community of entrepreneurs that have a tremendous story that's waiting to be told. And so our job is to be able to help get them online and to be able to be a part of that. So each one of you is a part of the solution. Each one of you has the ability to be able to galvanize and to be a catalyst in your community, whether it's a virtual community, whether it's a physical community to be able to tell stories and to be able to do the work that you do so that you can really do stuff that actually matters. We've had a chance to do stuff and work with the Apple Store and bringing great events and great people as a part of what we're doing. And what we realize is that physical spaces are important. We recognize that physical communities are important in terms of being able to tell the story. But ultimately, what happens is that we're people at the end of the day. And we have a partnership with WordPress.com. So we've been very fortunate to be able to work with Kinsey, to be able to work with the new president, Kinsey Wilson, to be able to work with Chris Taylor, the CMO, to have Matt Mullingway come out to Detroit and to spend time in coffee shops and small businesses inside neighborhoods. He didn't send a representative. He was there himself on the ground with us. And this is a quick snapshot of what some of the people look like and what some of the neighborhoods are about when we go in there and we have a chance to be able to actually work with them. So now what I want to get into is I want to talk a little bit more about co-creation. How many creatives do I have in the audience? OK, that should be every single person in the room. And let me just explain to you why I've learned this from a good friend, John, that design is not just about creating stuff, right? It's not just about designing pretty things. So if someone uses a spreadsheet, do you know that they're a designer? Now, I'm not talking about cooking the books because that might be getting a little too creative. But what I'm saying is that we are we are in the co-creation business. So the space that we're in is about co-creation. And so I want to share some notes as we as we begin to talk about co-creation. Co-creation is about thinking about one person. It's about designing for the one individual. And so when you're doing the work that you're doing, it's not about, I need to design for the entire market. No, understand and identify who is the person that you're actually designing for. So I want to give you, so this is the avatar of who we're specifically designing for. Her name is Margie Mia X Johnson. She is based in Newark, New Jersey. She's a spoken word artist. She went to Temple University. She is a mother of four, and she's an entrepreneur. So when I think about the entrepreneur, the person that we're working for, we're not necessarily working for the early adopter, even though we have a few of those in the groups that we work with. But this is specifically who I'm working for. So when you are creating and designing stuff, do you have a picture of the person that you're working for? Do you have a diagram or someone that who you understand a specific demographic of who you're working for? So what I want to do is I want to do something interesting. So I want you to be able to experience Mia X. And so I have a video, a short video that displays her doing what she does. Loose screw, mixed mind up, glue, fake hair to fake mindset. With grand visions, I'll drive eyeballs of blue much more than who you know yourself to be. A flusy ex queen, a custom to sweet, soft, chinny, chin, wiped off theme, bombarded with negative images, whitewashed themes lost in her own queen. So when we met Margie, she had no website. So we work with her to get a website. The name of her business is called Imagine Life. So we went out to try to find ImagineLife.com. And of course, it was taken. But we we found that's a great design opportunity. So we created a website for and we have WeImagine.life. So we began to look at branding opportunity and began to look at what are some of the other ways that we can help her to bring her vision to pass. So even as you're creating content, creating websites, there are other opportunities to be able to leverage these small pieces that can be beneficial when we began to work with her, she wasn't using PayPal. And so what we did is I said, let's look for other ways to be able to create opportunities. So when she was going to do to do actual spoken word pieces, what would happen that she could either get a check or somebody could pay her in cash or she could go places. And we're like, we want to create opportunities. So if you want to make a donation or purchase a book from her, you can go to WeImagine.life backslash store. And what we've created, we've also created where you can give her five snaps and do the five snaps. You can make a five dollar deposit. Right. And so what we found is that we wanted to create an opportunity to be able to have her to be able to tell her story and for her to be able to ultimately be able to grow her business. Right. And so what we do, though, we integrated the simple PayPal button that was created and that could be used on WordPress.com and in WordPress. And so again, a quick tool. Now, as we're doing is I want to share with you some things to get you thinking about your own brand, but also to think about storytelling. Every single person is a tremendous storyteller. I want you to know storytelling is a learned behavior. It's something that can be developed over time. I had a chance to go to the TED conference in 2012 and it really changed my life. I had a chance to listen to a young lady by the name of Susan Kane. She wrote a book and I believe it's called The Power of the Introvert, because before going there, I thought to be a leader, you had to be an extrovert and you had to be the loud person in front of the room. And she changed my total mindset because what I realized is that you can be quiet, you can be an introvert and you can still be a powerful leader. Right. And so after I listened to her, it really changed the way I thought. And so I want you, I want everybody to understand every single person is a storyteller. Everybody has a story that's waiting to be told and there's somebody waiting on the other side of that story. How many people believe that they have a great story? OK, we've got a couple of people, other people, you don't. This is your opportunity to be able to brag on yourself and get excited about your story. There are people that you can reach that I can never reach. Right. And so it's important for you to be able to understand that. So there was a great project out. I don't know if you've ever heard of significant objects. So it was an experiment that was done by Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn. They took a hundred worthless objects. They were worth about a dollar, twenty five a piece and sold them all together for over eight thousand dollars. And so we're going to talk about that real quick. So we're going to look first at the Kanga Mouse. Not sure how much you would pay for the Kanga Mouse. The Kanga Mouse found them. They found the Kanga Mouse on the beach, one ear. Right. So what did they do? They cleaned up the Kanga Mouse. So they took a great picture of the Kanga Mouse. They wrote a narrative in this project. What they did is that they decided that they were going to get a hundred writers to write great stories about these products. They didn't lie about the products, but they were going to write a story about it. Right. And so when they wrote the story, people began to make an emotional connection to those stories. Branding is all about making an emotional connection. A lot of stuff that we buy is not because of the utility of it because we want or somebody else has it. Right. So the price increase went up. Twelve thousand nine hundred percent. So it was sold for one hundred and sixty two dollars and fifty cents. So by a quick show of hands, how many people would pay one hundred and sixty two dollars and fifty cents for the one ear Kanga Mouse? I'm just going to look real quick to see how many people out there would spend that amount of money. So nobody raised their hand. The great part about this experiment is that you don't need everybody to buy it. You only need one person. And lots of times when we're telling stories and connecting with people, we think that it's more important to have ten thousand people follow us online. A hundred thousand people follow us. What if you have a hundred paying customers and they're consistent? When we talk to entrepreneurs, the thing that we drive home is that predictable income is critically important. The project that we're working on is about making entrepreneurs more successful. It's not just about getting a website, but helping them to become more successful. So I want to show you some of the stories of the people that we're working with. There's a gentleman in Florida by the name of Ledger, and he has this great company called Alumify, and he has created this street light. And the great part about this street light is that is that it. One thing I hold on real quick. I just noticed something, my next slide coming up. Bam. All righty. OK, cool. All right, we'll get back to Ledger. Nothing like having the next slide come up so you can see something else come up. OK, so Ledger, great story. He had the Wi-Fi. He has a street light that he has created that creates a Wi-Fi signal that is placed in communities that don't have strong Wi-Fi. And we have a chance to be able to work with him and to get his story out there. We have a chance to work with Miguel, who has a who has a men's shop in the heart of Detroit, helping men to become more stylish because most of us realize we need help. Right, we need we need some kind of help. All right, I thought I thought the guys were going to help me out on that one. No one helped me out. That's all. It's all good. It's OK. I'm up here. I'm up here on the island all by myself, and I'm not going to take it personal. All right. So we we have Judith and Norma. They run a great restaurant in Southwest Detroit. It's the largest concentration of Spanish speaking people in in the metropolitan Detroit area. And a lot of the businesses there are running based on cash because people in that community support that community. Right. We have people like Damon. We met Damon in Chicago. The great part about Damon is that Damon was not going to allow perfection to get in the way. He has a sauce out for us called Damon's Everything Sauce. The sauce when we met him had no label on it. Not sure how many people would eat sauce or you saw if it doesn't have a label on it. But one of the great parts what I loved about Damon is that she perfection is the enemy of done. And so lots of times we would wait for all the label to be perfect and be printed perfectly. Damon didn't let they get in the way he's working on the label now. But these are the kind of entrepreneurs that we're working with who are not going to allow things to get in their way. I got to move. All right. Got lost up to cover. OK, this is the Lopez family. They've been in Detroit for 25 years were sharing their story. This is this is Gary and this is this is Gary and this is Alicia, a great restaurant. This is some of the people that we're serving and working with. Those were moms who hustle. This is a young lady that we met in Miami. Her name is Ebony. And she has a tremendous consulting business full of energy, doing really, really cool and interesting things. Right. And what we want to do with each one of these businesses is that we want to help them to become the next Kronut. Has anyone ever heard of a Kronut before? All right. So for those who have not heard of a Kronut, a Kronut was created by Dominic. And so he is a baker based out of New York. He also has a bakery in London and I think in one of the in one other location. But in 2013, he trademarked this hybrid donut and croissant. And he trademarked the name and he's created what we call scarcity. So people get in line at about five thirty in the morning by nine o'clock. The donuts are sold out. And so either you've gotten the donut or you have it. Right. He creates one flavor per month. There's only three hundred and fifty that are made in a day when they're gone. They're gone. And so what we want to do is that we want to be able to replicate that. But what are things that people value when things are scarce? There's a different value that's connected to it. So we want to create something that people value and be able to connect to. Here is an example of some of the sites that we have that we've had a chance to be able to create. And so in the work that we're doing, we want to be the one hundred dollar laptop. We're creating affordable solutions. Our solutions are three hundred dollars. And so we're and so we're helping people to be able to get online. That includes a photo session. It includes branding workshops. It includes a series of things that allow a business to be able to get online and and we do it in about a day. So we'll work with business owners that are working 10 to 12 our days. So we know they don't have a lot of times with the beginning and the end to be able to get this stuff done. And so we're working hard to be able to do it. This is a list of some of the things that are included in that. But what I want to do is I want to share with you my dream. My dream is to be able to have these activations launching every single week in a city in the United States and in the world beyond, which means that I can't do it by myself, which means that I need to be able to identify and activate directors in cities all across the world to be able to help businesses that are offline, get online. And so if you're interested, the information is right here. We're looking for people who want to have an impact. You can email me at Hodge at rebrand.city. The information for our site is rebrand.city. And then we can be found on all the social channels. Now, I want to save a few minutes for questions. But anytime I do a presentation, I'll always share this picture whether it has anything to do with my presentation or not. I always share it. So I had a chance. We were listening to President Obama. This is back in 2017. No, no, no, this is back in, you know, it was a while ago. OK. All right. And so they put me all the way in the back of the room for some reason. Not sure why that happened, but they did. They put me in the back. And so I had to find ways to get up to the front. So that meant that I was getting water. I was going to the bathroom and I saw Dwayne Wade. How many people know who Dwayne Wade is? OK, so he's a basketball player for the Miami Heat, right? So when I walked by, what I realized is I saw Dwayne Wade and I realized that on his bucket list, he wanted to take a picture with Hodge. So I said, this is my opportunity to be able to make Dwayne Wade's day. So I stopped and I asked him, do you want to take a picture? And you can look at the sheer joy this on Dwayne Wade's face. He wanted to take a picture with Hodge. So I was like, look, I am going to take time out of my busy day. My friend asked his wife, it was his fiancee back then, if she wanted to be in the picture, she said no. So we made sure she was in the middle of the picture, right? And so after that, what did I do? I tweeted to Dwayne Wade, I apologized about about taking this picture, right? But then I said, that's not enough. I know Dwayne is going to want this to get out to the larger community. So I saw a couple of weeks later, I said, you know, why don't I just go and write a blog post? So I wrote a blog post that got picked up by a major media outlet. It was six steps on how to interrupt Dwayne Wade and Gabriel Union's dinner with style. Dwayne Wade sees it, he retweets it and calls me a genius. I did a screenshot. This is not Photoshop, because I wanted there to be evidence, right? That the disinteraction took place. Now Dwayne, now me and Dwayne Wade are friends online. So he probably has no idea who I am. If I was to meet him and he was walking to the room, he was like, who is that dude? But at some point, I believe we're going to do business together. But I always use this point because I want you to understand that things happen in real time and there are certain things that you cannot recreate. Me trying to call Dwayne and say, hey, why don't we go meet at this dinner so we can take this picture and you can't be afraid of the moment. So again, I want to share that with you. I want to I think we have a couple of minutes for questions before I get booted off stage left. So I think we have a mic somewhere and I'm going to answer a couple of questions and then I will be around to be able to answer whatever questions you might have. All right. All right, we've got 15 minutes. We've got 15 minutes. We got 15 minutes for questions. Yeah. Wow, we got a lot of time to watch all my other stuff. I could it's not. It's all good. OK, question. I know I saw world peace. I saw hunger. But are there any other questions? Have we got our mic run as handy? Yeah, you guys are there. Oh, we got some questions. Because before we leave today, I'm just prepping you. We're going to take a selfie together. So I'm just getting you ready. So if you have to get your hair together and all the other kind of stuff, we're going to meet right in the middle. We're going to do a selfie and it's going to be the biggest selfie that we've had at WordCamp Europe. And I can do it from a data standpoint. So, hey, it'll be the biggest selfie that we've had in this room at 12 o'clock. No. OK. Where's the lady over here that's waiting to ask a question? OK, right here. Question. I can't tell if it's on. Is it on? Yes. Great. My name is Josepha. I like to introduce myself before I ask questions. Anyway, I was wondering. So you were saying that this is like an opportunity to bridge a digital divide or crush a digital divide. Is it that having that representation, having those people available as a beacon of like what you can do, is that the idea is having them as an example and available for other people to see like this is for me too. I can do that too. Is that the idea around using this as a tool with the digital divide? OK, that's a great question. So there are a variety of answers. So one is that we are telling stories about business owners that in many cases are invisible. So what happened in cities that we tell the same story about the same people all the time. So now, first of all, we have a chance to tell great stories. The other part is that the website becomes a trigger. So a website we know in and of itself does not save the world. But it's a start. And what happens now they have marketing assets. So if someone goes into Google Maps, goes into Yelp, they're now this now starts the process of them being visible. And so then it should ultimately start to drive more revenue into the business. What we want to do is we want to be a platform. So if someone is looking for I need a coffee shop in in Detroit, then I can tell them, well, there's a great coffee shop called called Motor City Java, and it's in Brightmore. And they can go to our site and they can look at those. If people are looking for recommendations, we want to be able to create an opportunity where if there are developers in the room or other creatives who are looking to work with a community of small business owners and you don't know who to work with, you can contact us and we can work with you remotely so we can create those kind of opportunities. We can also find out opportunity to where if they need a developer who's physically in their community, once we've gone to that community, and we've had a chance to work with people, then we can point them to those creatives in those communities as well. So it's a storytelling platform. It's a way for these business owners to be able to generate more money and to be visible because ultimately we want them to become more successful. And we're trying to create this army of creatives to where ultimately when we're working with someone, it's not about me being a hero. I want to create heroes and heroes in other communities to where I can say this individual is working with this community of entrepreneurs and we can lift them up because our channel partners with the people that we work with in different cities are critically important to what we do. But that was a great question. Have we got any more questions? I know I stand between you and lunch. Oh, oh, in the front row. Yes. Wow. Hi, I noticed on your pricing page that you have like three hundred dollars that you're selling for a rebrand and website design. How can you afford to hire people to do something so extensive? Do you receive grant money or do you have donations? So that's a great question. So now if we go through all the things that a business owner gets. So a business owner gets they get the domain name. They get the they get the hosting package on WordPress.com, which is the business plan, which costs three hundred dollars. And so the photo shoot and all the other things that are part of it are things to where we go out and we raise money so that we're subsidized. So am I going to become a millionaire doing this? Probably not. But what we do is that is that we work to be able to get enough funding in to where we can have it to where it's an affordable solution. So we are subsidized and it allows us. But what it forces us to do, it forces us to be lean. It forces us to be able to have to come up with a creative solution. And when I found I didn't grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth. So so I realized that some of my best solution when I was a kid was when I was creative. And so we found creative ways to be able to provide affordable solution. But what that means is that we need a certain component of volunteerism to be able to make this work. So at a minimum, we need to be at about 10 percent volunteerism. We're currently in our in a difference in a different activation that we've been at. We're at about 88 percent. So we're over indexing. But what we do is that even for the people who volunteer, we look for how do we drive revenue or create opportunity for them? Is it attention? Is it if they're creating some kind of opportunity? And so what we're always looking for is what is the win-win opportunity? We're not just trying to extract from communities, but find ways to where we can drive revenue and drive opportunities. But that's a great question. As a follow up question, are you looking for then volunteers to help you create websites for your clients, you know, to volunteer there at time and expertise or web design experiences? Yes. So what has happened in our cities is that we've actually had we've had developers come in and volunteer time. We've had a chance to be able to pay developers. So but if we're paying, it's going to be it's going to be, it's, you know, I mean, it's something, but it's not a lot, right? So a lot of what we do is that it's based on us being able to make this model work with people putting sweat equity in. And then we look for ways to be able to drive opportunities their way. More questions. So we have a chat here in the middle to the back. Microphone runner is running to you. It's impressive. Why he's running there. One of the things we met a guy in Chicago who came, volunteered, and then we ended up working with him to do to do some video stuff and do some other things. So we're able to create some actual revenue for him. So so it's it's it's definitely worked out. All right. Next question. Hello, before which part of the website have bigger impact, the layout or design part or the functionality and why? All right. So when you say a bigger impact, I guess it all depends on the stakeholder. So in terms of the impact for us, obviously being able to get business owners who aren't visible online is important for for the business owner. It could be their products are visible. So I'll give you an example. We have in in Newark, we had a mom, Panua, who we got her online. And four days later, she had an event. No, I mean, she posted an event and in four days, she raised $1,000. Now, for most people in this room, that might not seem like a lot of money, but for an event that you put online and you're able to understand who's coming there and to drive $1,000. So having that point to be able to push people to. So that was important, a place, a centralized place to be able to integrate her her events and we use the simple PayPal button once again. And so for her, it was being able to have the events in one place where people could go to it and she could point them to. So it all depends on the stakeholder. For the creatives that we're working with who are photographers or designers, they want to be able to have something that they can point people to so just so they can get more business. So again, I think it all depends on the actual stakeholder. OK, thank you. You're welcome. More questions. We have time for... Oh, right here. We got a question right here in the middle. OK, the question is starting to heat up. The question is starting to heat up. Hey, do you have any type of follow-up project with all these people that you collaborate with to track if their performance is improving or to be able to improve the project if it's not working in the right way or is it just a one-time thing? OK, so let me make sure that I understand your question. So, OK, so when you say photo ops, are you saying, do we have a portfolio of photos or are we saying how do we vet the people? Oh, follow-up. OK, follow-ups. OK, thank you for the clarification. Yes, so now they become a part of our community. And so then what we look for also are our other earned media opportunities. So now we're sharing stories. So so we have certain blog posts on our blog where we talk about the actual business owners. We're going to start to talk about some of the creatives and start to share their stories. And so and so to follow up, they become a permanent part of our community and we're always looking to point them towards opportunity. So I had someone in D.C. who was doing this research paper and they were like, we want to know about some of your business owners. And so then I was able to go to a young lady who was in Newark as well. She is a she is a she's a fitness coach and we were able to connect her and they were able to tell her story. And so and so not only are the follow-up in terms of keeping them involved and making sure that they're set. And the part of this, they have a call with a happiness engineer at WordPress.com. They're able to actually provide support. But then we have ongoing pieces. So we have webinars and other training pieces that then help to galvanize these entrepreneurs because they need more than just a website. They they they need a larger community to be a part of, to be able to share ideas, to bounce stuff off of. What I've realized in terms of being an entrepreneur, being an entrepreneur can be a lonely endeavor. I mean, if you are a remote worker, you understand what I'm saying. If you are working on this idea and you're like, I can't afford to pay this consultant. So it really can be a place where you feel like you're just out there by yourself. And so and so we try to do is try to provide things that can bring support. So some of the people who have come to our event, we end up having them do webinars and we've been able to pay them something to do a webinar. We have someone who was doing content strategy and did a business huddle at one of our events and then we paid her to be an actual coach and do a webinar. So we're doing other things because we know that there's other support things that are needed. Amazing. So did you want to take a group photo? We are going to do a group photo. Do we so we don't have any more questions? I've solved. We had no. OK, all right. We have to make this the last. Oh, OK. We have to make this the last one, though. OK. Oh, OK, OK. Could you would you mind talking into the microphone because there are people at home watching as well? So be good, good for everyone to hear you. Can you hear me? Yes, I didn't see you running. So you were talking about all the projects in the U.S. You try to expand them to Europe, the whole world. Are there any ongoing projects here planned in this region? Maybe in Europe, Western and Southern. So we're in conversation with the city of Liverpool. But the reason that I brought it up here is that. I have a lot of new friends that I just met. And I would love to be able to pilot something. And again, it doesn't have to be huge. You know, if we need to, we can start out being remote. I would love to make another trip somewhere else in the world to be able to expand this idea. So so we are looking for more opportunities. We're just looking for the right people. And I believe that, you know, that wherever we start, we can always grow and we can always expand it. So I have a question. So where are you located at? Croatia, OK. All right. Maybe you'd be interested in maybe we can have a conversation afterwards. All right, that sounds like a plan. All right. So now the next thing we're going to do is we're going to do a selfie. So I'm going to give some specific instructions for those who want to be in the selfie. Now, we might be at a tag you in the selfie. You might blow up and you might have a billion followers once we get finished. And you might have so much business. You're like, man, if I come, I can't do anything else, but just work on the stuff that I got from being in the selfie. Right. So what we're going to do, I'm going to come right down here. So we need people to move towards the middle. That means that you might need to get up out of your seat. And we're making history, folks. I don't know how many people have taken selfies at WordCamp before, but we're all about making history. And so I'm just going to say this is the largest selfie at WordCamp Europe because I don't know if there's another data point to refute that at this point in time. Somebody might refute it later on. But what we're going to say is that we just did the largest selfie at WordCamp. Come on in, everyone. Everybody come on in. People at the back there. Come on. Come forward. Don't be shy. I'm going to do the best I can with my arm. And then we'll probably have some photographers. And then we'll probably have him come a little bit closer. All right. Would that be better? Well, they're all here now. You're going to ask the photographer. I mean, I don't know if that's going to work or not. Is that going to work to have that at the backdrop? Oh, OK. All right. So we're going to do one here first and then we're going to switch. OK. So make sure. All right. All right. We're going to say, hey. All right. And then we want. Why don't you come over here so we can so we can look like we have a selfie, but you're going to take the picture. So it's going to be a fake selfie. OK. OK. So we're going to have my arm stretch this way. All right. And should we go there, you know? Are we good? OK. That is awesome. So how can I get there from you so we can post this in real time? Like today? What? We'll have it on Twitter and stuff. OK. OK. You have on it. I guess today. OK. What's going to be on it today, though? OK. All right. I'm trying to make it make a commitment in front of everybody so we can make sure this gets on there today. I just put it on the spot. All right. So let's give her a massive round of applause for that awesome talk. Thank you. Thank you.