 So thanks for coming out. We're just going to do a working lunch today. My name is Molly Martin, and I'm with New America. And I'll tell you a little bit more about what New America is shortly. But like I said, this is a working lunch, a casual conversation. I'll close that. Can you guys hear OK? About the future of work and the creative economy. We're going to do a couple of these conversations out this way. And we thought we would start with a brain trust, people who could help us think through what the assets are in makers, in creative economies, in some of the craft manufacturing scenes in this region. And by the region, I certainly mean Pittsburgh, but I also mean Morgantown, and I mean some of the rural communities in Outer Rings that are impacted in this economy. And we're going to talk a little bit, and I think that's Sabrina. Welcome. Thanks for being here. You're welcome. Thanks for having me. We're going to talk a little bit today about some of the data that let us know that creatives and the makers are so vital to the growth of the economy, and especially in a place like West Virginia. And definitely in a place like the Outer Rings suburbs of Pittsburgh, but I'm also here to learn from all of you. Before we get started on that, on Outer Places, we each have an index card and I scattered some markers. I would love for you to write your first name and the last thing that you made. And we're going to go around and get a sense of who's around the table before we order our lunch. So what's the last thing that you made? You could have made it for fun. You could have made it for cash. You could have made it for family. I think we can go ahead and come in and while we're doing introductions take order. So if you just want to take a look at the menu, we're not fancy. Thank you. Did everyone have a water? Anyone else need water? Our other drinks do have you. So while we come around and do our introductions, we'll come around and get some drink order so don't be shy, we're not too formal. I'll start to do a little modeling. So I'm going to tell you who I am, last thing I made, I'm going to throw in where I'm from and I'd love to hear the same from you. So I'm Molly, I'm Molly Martin. The last thing I made was a pumpkin pie. It was okay. And I'm originally from Charleston, West Virginia and I've lived in Indianapolis for almost 20 years. Chef. I'm Chef. The last thing I made actually was French onion soup but it's kind of the season for cooking. The last thing notable that I made was a Bluetooth amplifier for my ABC soup. That's amazing. I'm from the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, so please stand. Thank you for being here. I'm Jess. I am from Charleston, West Virginia and the last thing, I kind of put two things because I thought one was boring but I'll mention it because I think it's important. The last fun thing I made was like a sticker of Black Bear illustration that I did but the thing I made this morning is a dashboard driving the next action for a sales team for one of my clients and I think creatives can contribute a lot to like moving things forward so that's fine until that one. Yeah, I'm from the West Virginia area and the last thing that I made is an infographic and some blog content for work and for personal reasons. It was like lots of papers. I used to be an early elementary teacher so it just never left me. I will let you in. I grew up in Texas originally. Which part of Texas? It gets complicated. I grew up in Houston. My family's from Austin. I'm an adopted West Virginia. I work at a company called Downstream Strategies. I'm a serial crafter so really I have like three almost finished projects but the one I will mention is a 18 by 24 very colorful drawing of a rooster that is an information piece for a friend that has been waiting for a very long time. So you're a friend maker. I wear a lot of hats. I wear a lot of hats. Serial crafter. I love that. Sarah. We'll come on down to the end. So while Sabrina's ordering I am Stacy. I'm originally from Bama, West Virginia. I live in West Virginia University for undergraduate school and I currently work in Pittsburgh for a program called Startable and I'm a professional maker program. The last thing I made was a headstone for a hamster guide on Thanksgiving. RIP. What was the hamster's name? Kitty. I like that. She's a big hamster. So we've lost our gear. Oh, I'm so sorry. I have a little one that's always tough. Was it the first time that they've lost a pet? Yeah. Yeah. We've lost people. Right. So Sabrina, I'll come back to you for your introduction. Thank you. Talk to me, Bray Taller. And when I wrote him and I created the and published is a memoir of how I made it from the hauler and made it to Capitol Hill a few years ago. Now I started talking about my truth and it's a routine in politics. I love that. It's a world I didn't really know existed. Wonderful. And we're saying who we are where we're from both geographically and organizationally. And then also the last thing the field director for the Remake Learning Network serves about 12 counties including down here in Morgantown, West Virginia. And the last thing I made was Lego towers. Oh nice. How old are your niece and nephew? They are three and five. Oh, that's a perfect age for Legos. Well, I am really tickled by the assortment around the room. Has anybody ever seen the movie Clue? And nobody knows why they've been in by the two places and they're very worried about it. It's going to happen to them. This might feel a little bit like that, but fear not. So I'll tell you a little bit about this series that New America has been doing. I'll tell you a little bit about what New America is first. So New America and this is actually in your teeny tiny slides. I have a funny artificial intelligence story about the teeniness of the slides. New America is a civic platform. We get people together to talk about public problems. We also do research. We do policy work. We do solution design. We look at the way Americans are interacting in the digital age. Lots of journalism. So we act as kind of a media hub. Now my colleagues who are actually listening in the big voice in the sky, Lisa and Christina and Margaret, Lisa and Christina are with the Ed Policy team at New America. And open educational resources and different ways to learn the different ways children interact with technology. I came into this project from another corner of New America. I work in what we call the National Network, what we'll soon call New America Local. And I look at how communities are solving problems. The different ways that people, whether they're in kind of church basement or in the state house, are looking at the most intractable problems and making them either go away and so I play kind of a part journalistic role and a part advisor role. I go around and find the people who are solving the problems in interesting ways. I try to get them the spotlight they deserve. I try to get them to each other. I try to help create learning networks around those. And I do most of this work in the context of people accessing income. We used to talk about it as accessing work. But at the end of the day, people need money, right? We understand that whether or not the capitalist structure suits us. And we know that people need income to support themselves and support their family. And we know that the ways that they can get income is really changing. It's especially changing in the places where I work. So I'm based in Indiana, but I do work in Indiana and to Michigan and Arkansas here in my native West Virginia, a little bit in Western New York. And what all of these places have in common, and I don't have to tell y'all this, is the economy has changed drastically in those places. Whether it's a resource like coal or steel changing and the way you process it, changing or certainly resources run out. A lot of those places rely on manufacturing and that's changed those folks. And a lot of those places have an out migration problem. And I'm here to tell the optimistic story. That's why I call together meetings like this one. This has all been part, this is actually the third event in something called the Humanities and Tech Connected Conversation Series. We've been really lucky to have the Council of Remake Learning and Grable Foundation and Benidom Foundation to hear a little bit about the way you use humanities to get around these pernicious technological issues. We're testing the theory that humanities tools, art, music, literature, history, craft can be hardest to help us understand our local stories and be good citizens. But also that we have to understand them if we're going to understand the way people access learning and work. We want to get a deeper sense of our community and in this digital age when the tech tools get all of the attention. We want to make sure that we're using them appropriately and in tandem. So, before we jump into the really simply everybody loves data, we're going to talk about some killer stats. Before we jump into that, Lisa asked me to pose a question to you, my colleague in DC. It's a really important one. This whole series has been about humanities moments. And actually, Lisa gave me something specific to say and I want to honor that because I don't want to take credit for her beautiful words. What was it? Was there an art, a piece of craft that stirred something in you or caused you to challenge the status quo or seek new answers? Ken Burns, the documentary maker, has said that his humanities moment, that's what we call these, came when he heard lines from an historic speech given by a relatively young Lincoln that had haunted and inspired him. So there are those moments for all of us. You read a book, you see a film, you hear a song, you make something and Lisa wants us to do this imagining because we want you to be thinking in an open-ended way about why being creative matters. But also, we want to help you think about what you want in the future. And we've got these videographers here from Stealtown Entertainment. I'm going to break the fourth wall and welcome them who are teaching young people how to harness their creative skills and become filmmakers and videographers. But if we could, either today or in the future, and I can send you the link, we want you to think about that humanities moment, we'd love to capture that with the help of Stealtown today or I'll send you to a link at the Humanities Project where you could share your humanities moment. We're going to be coming back to that idea a couple times. But now I'm kind of taking back the proverbial mic and bringing us to this maker skills as future skills. When Lisa asked me to be part of this project, she asked me from the perspective of someone who's working a lot on artificial intelligence. That was most of what I was doing last year. How does AI change work? And should people in a place like West Virginia be really scared of that? What I came around to talking to Ani, talking to her colleague Ali, talking to lots of people in the region was technology is a huge consideration in the way work happens in this region, but it's not the only consideration. And this is one of the places in the country where doing things old school may be a certain economic savior for us where we need to get other states and communities thinking the way that West Virginia and Southern Pennsylvania think about making and creativity, because it could be the only answer for a lot of small communities. So I'll go over these, I'll send these in the digital packet, but what I wanted to tell you is from the perspective of future work automation and technology are already here. The future of work is now, it's kind of past us. Out here, it is old news to tell someone that they might lose their job, or that their job might change due to technology. So I've got some statistics in here that I just wanted to share with you about kind of why communities are facing a challenge and why everybody's talking about the future of work. So the future of work is changing because the people are changing, the community needs are changing, the way we work is changing and in this region that means a couple of things. So overall in the nation, we're tipping towards the white minority, that's one big thing that's changing about the way we work and interact. It's not bad news, it's actually a really big asset. What's challenging in this region is we're tipping towards a white minority in certain regions and not others but meanwhile nothing else we do is changing. We're not addressing systems that better educate the foreign born who do come to us and a lot of them are coming to Southern Pennsylvania. We're not acknowledging the fact that the achievement and opportunity and educational gaps for folks of color remain really pernicious even in a place where so-called white poverty is probably the biggest marker. So it's still important to know that we will be a majority minority which is always such a weird expression right here before too long in 2050 even in a place like West Virginia that is more white than maybe the rest of the country but certainly in Pennsylvania where most of the population growth has been from foreign born residents which is a really exciting thing but if our foreign born residents don't have the same kind of opportunity what are we doing? The other thing that's changing nationally and it impacts this region is people are not staying in jobs for a really long time like they used to that's probably not used to y'all but two out of three millennials are going to leave their job in the next three years and I'm a Gen Xer so I'm older than a millennial but we think of millennials as being in high school the oldest millennials are in their late 30s and so the core of our workforce is people even in an aging place like West Virginia but definitely in a more youthful area like Pittsburgh folks are not going to stick with you if you're an employer for very long we think of that as a sign of the times really it's the new truth it's just the constant and we have to think about people as moving really fluidly through the ways that they're employed and the ways they make their money we're also working longer which is great news for this region so it's bad news for those of us who thought maybe someday we would retire but most of us are going to work into our 70s and most of us are going to at some point work for ourselves into our 70s in West Virginia this is actually a really good narrative because West Virginia is a relatively old state per capita the aging population really sticks because West Virginians aren't staying as much as they used to we have a lot of out migration in West Virginia and they're also not having as many kids as they used to and so they're just not as much useful turn over and the other reason we need to think about this both in the Pittsburgh Metro and Morgantown is for the folks who are staying there's a huge group of them who are living in poverty in their best quote money making years in those early career years and it's because traditional employment is really not suiting them so technology certainly has changed the way people have worked I think a lot of people blame offshoring and technology for job loss we'll actually put that out to the group how many of you know someone who's lost a job or had a job change and they've told you it was technology or it was like offshoring it was Mexico, it was China has anybody that happened to someone in their lives to see a mixed reaction so Stacy can you tell me a little bit about what that story was like for the person you knew I don't know if my story is what you're looking for but I was in New York during the greater session and people's jobs were being off-shore so that story was it was interesting I worked in a company I worked in a corporate world after I graduated from art school and my job was to transition processes to our own biophones so it was literally my job to I'm sorry guys but it was a weird time and it was a job that I got and for my employees who knew well how to answer really well their jobs I helped them as much as I could I prep them with my program with our HR team to do a resume during the great session that didn't matter so much there was such a lack of job and for some of them it was a narrative for others they kind of understood this is the way everything was going and they just figured out how to get used to it so it was interesting and there's so many emotions attached when you're the person who lives in your job so I love it that's a really great story and actually it's a perfect jumping off point because when we understand the story of what happens to someone in a job disruption or a job loss we know a little bit more about what to do with it so you were in New York presumably like in New York City and so you were in a place where there's a little more inherent perceived inherent opportunity once the economy bounces back right do you think do you think the people who were that you were working with had any hope looking around thinking at least I'm in New York do you think it would have been a different experience having that conversation about moving everything to Mumbai if you went back here I mean I feel like I feel like that's really that's a question of class to the people you know it's dependent on being able to see who we're coming from these are born and raised New Yorkers who are coming from like lower class backgrounds and so they felt you know I'm sorry we'll zero from that I don't think they felt like there were a bunch of opportunities like New Yorkers looking pretty grand but yeah I can't really compare the wrapping of the story about here that was like no that's perfect because I think you've made the point is that it kind of does we assume that living here whatever here means is somehow a hit you know it's we're at a deficit but if you don't have a post-secondary education if you're already the lowest paid people in the company it kind of doesn't matter where you live when the future of work comes knocking what matters is the resilience and resilience has been a real privilege in this country comes with money and it comes with class and often comes with race too so I think that's a really pertinent story hi welcome how are you thank you so much apologize for being like do not apologize and you must be Donna I am so Donna I wanted to just everyone this is Donna Donna this is everyone we were just going over some statistics about the future of work and how they relate nationally and how they relate to the region and Stacy was sharing a story of having worked in New York when a lot of offshore it was going on at tech companies there during the great recession now when we think about why people get displaced now in a tight labor market it feels like it would be a different story but it usually isn't it means that the jobs change enough that they need folks with what they call higher order skills right I don't love the language of middle and higher skills which they use and all of a sudden there are a lot more jobs available up here and the number of jobs down here start to go away but you have the same number of people trying to get through that door the number of those jobs did anybody have a first job like at a McDonald's okay exactly retail those used to be our way in our way to get work experience and all the critical thinking skills and problem solving skills and also the way to start a little bit of social capital networking those jobs anymore are being quote taken by older people we need adults need those jobs and so it's not a summer job or an entry level job anymore and there are fewer and fewer jobs with places like McDonald's going cashier lists by 2020 for the people who really need that leg in the door especially youth employment and so we're up against this weird moment where people are being told you need all these higher order skills to compete but you're not going to be able to work when you're a teenager because youth employment is way down sorry for your luck you need those higher order skills but it's really expensive to get a post secondary education we're also getting to the point where skills that the jobs that used to be held by the folks who did not get to have education beyond high school are thinning out and so we're going to do a little exercise I've got a little list on my teeny tiny slides that I will read of some jobs and so let's do a little game the jobs are CEO you'll flip over and see them, aerospace engineer preschool teacher accountant, choreographer cashier and admin assistant who wants to take a stab at the least vulnerable job on that list to automation what do you think a robot can't do where is AI without playing preschool teacher that's exactly right obviously we're not fortune tellers but data tells us we don't want to give our babies to robots it's a thing we don't like it reminds some of the older of us like me of the Jetsons what's another really vulnerable job who's on the block cashier is a big one we'll talk in a minute about just how many cashiers are in this region trying to become creatives we have and there's actually two more on this list that I would say are super vulnerable accountant accountant is really vulnerable Donna that's a good one and it is one of the better paying jobs that we're seeing collapse because entry level accounting is kind of rote we have a lot of apps that do things for us and in that kind of accounting category for labor statistics you also have things like insurance adjusters it's not a good time to go into insurance adjusting your phone at the car after you've had an accident right so it is these jobs that once guaranteed you a middle class living that are starting to collapse a little and then finally administrative assistant which is really bad news for women and it tends to be bad news for women in places like Pittsburgh real bad news for women in south bend Indiana Indianapolis Phoenix Pittsburgh Buffalo where you have some history of racial segregation in all those cities you have a strong history of women of color being unable to get jobs in certain fields but having it in into the administrative assistant things so not only you have women at risk you also have some pretty heavy racial and class implications when an administrative assistant category collapses but the skills that you need to do some of these jobs that are going away are still pretty relevant when we talk about automation we often talk about high risk skills so it's here emotionless predictable wrote if you can build a hamburger you can build a stack of pancakes McDonald's can fill your soda with a machine but there are human skills that we that robots just aren't good at we've seen them do it we've seen them compose music we've seen them choreograph but they're just using formula so it's not very passionate it doesn't show much judgment it doesn't show many people skills so you have working in settings that are unpredictable things that require flexibility judgment strategy instead of rules and dealing with people and so those human skills are actually something that a cashier is probably really going to happen so you worked retail did somebody say they were doing I'm just checking to see if I take off when you work retail how many times did you have to deal with an awful person? and what did it teach you about knowing about all the people? humanity when they shop we lose our ability to be people it's really interesting how that just leads you and how much did that strike you as a creative skill like when you were sitting there working retail you were thinking I'm building a skill in a way yes because I've watched my parents become entrepreneurs and have to build that skill so that's the only reason I knew it was because they told me I didn't have to do this for the rest of my life but you're going to have to navigate people that do this and act this way for the rest of your life so the reason I knew that is because I had like parents who were not complaining they'd be like stop this life this is how it works right and so we actually have people earning and developing skills that are probably the most future resilient in the lowest paid jobs we don't value them that way we don't pay them that way but you can on it the real issue when transitioning people from jobs that are going away into jobs that are resilient is making them see the value in skills like creativity and dealing with difficult people but there often isn't a parent or people trying to pay their bills they don't necessarily have time to stop and say oh my look at the resume that I'm building and so in this we know that job disruption due to automation is really not always as much about loss as it is about change and being able to translate those skills so if you're flexible and adaptable and focusing on the transferable skills you're actually going to be okay even if you're a cashier today but there's a whole lot of social infrastructure that has to grow up around that West Virginia the infrastructure isn't always there if I'm in Pittsburgh I have slightly better odds of building an infrastructure that can help a cashier make that transition because there's some committed market demand there are employers moving to Pittsburgh you've had population growth in West Virginia it's a largely out migration state like Indiana where I live and you have less committed corporate demand so we can develop skills all day but there may not be any place for people to work and that's why it's a pretty complex place to talk about transferability and probably an ideal place to talk about creativity I'll just really quick about population though I think it's important to clarify that this work has to be grown at all in fact all we've done is stop the decline for the first time that's such a good point so tell me more about that we talked a little bit and you may in the Rust Belt stay above negative why do you think Pittsburgh has been able to stop the hemorrhage of folks well I was at the Allegheny Conferences annual meeting last night so it's fresh in my mind it's the idea of continuing to rely upon manufacturing and energy companies that kept us afloat particularly in 2009 investments in universities in medical hospitals and facilities and universities and robotics also helped contribute to 35 years right do you know anything else or anyone in the room know anything else to keep going you're doing great and then the political climate shifting in and out has really been sheltered in places like Pittsburgh because it is so such a closed system and it was actually the lack of like the global mindset that saved us in a lot of ways and it's only now that we're seeing that opening up being part of the interbuilding possibilities I think there's another thing that is unique about Pittsburgh and that is well the university systems the philanthropic community is also a key element because the philanthropic community rather than being a number of disparate foundations they actually coordinate really really well to be strategic in the way that they support efforts and it makes an enormous difference in having lived in Texas and Oregon and a number of places Pittsburgh's unique as far as I can tell and I think there's sort of a call that needs to go out to the non-government philanthropic folks to say you should be thinking about not telling people what to do but organizing themselves around strategic goals and then letting the other sectors whether they're private or public sectors respond in the ways that they know best or can best accomplish those strategic goals for the region of our community and there's a lot of lessons that we welcome from this pulling apart there's interesting ingredients that I think that's more unusual and we're starting to see glimpses of that because of the UN sustainability goals but it's very NASA and Pittsburgh is actually unfortunately one of the frontrunners in doing that and corporations are leading the way in that corporations and then education is the second sector that the UN has seen in terms this is so perfect for this conversation because what Pittsburgh has done to your point if I'm hearing correctly this makes sense has spun its deficits to its advantage to its protection and obviously it's a really innovative place because I think when you are struggling to survive you innovate and so every city like Pittsburgh or South Bend or even Indianapolis to a much lesser extent finds that so when we talk about the ways that Pittsburgh has been able to kind of explode it had to spin a narrative on its ear for those of you who and I know some of you at Pittsburgh also work in West Virginia for those of you who work in West Virginia how has an insular mindset served West Virginia I don't know that it has a lot I think it's actually a detriment if I had to say one thing that's been beneficial about it I think it does build I think we have a really strong sense of community and people who have left still have a very strong connection because of that so I think that could be a strength that just sort of idea of roots and pull but I think in a lot of ways it can also be we're not careful about balancing that one because I think we're also very I've heard from a lot of people from out of state like yeah people are really welcoming once you get to know them but it takes so long to build connections because some people are just sort of standoffish it's like you're walking into a high school cafeteria and there's all the clicks already and then you have to figure out what you've gone wrong that's what I've heard people say that's really interesting Donna you look like maybe you had something to add too I think the resiliency is powerful in West Virginia I really do and that's to build on what you're saying I think but there is that insular thing like Maggie and I just put on a legislative forum and we brought in Venetian helped us sponsor it and they're really big on state you know in-state experts presenting as well as national perspective and that's the way we feel too in our board but we really got a lot of flack from some people like why would you bring in Carnegie Mellon when we're doing this, this and that you know so a little discouraging that's a really great perspective one thing I hear threading through all of this which I think is going to be really pertinent to an activity we're going to do together is understanding the sense of identity is so strong in this region and in both Pittsburgh and West Virginia that is sometimes hard to penetrate but also sometimes a useful tool to leverage and also I take your point growing up and then into philanthropy I worked at a foundation for a decade a foundation called Lumina Foundation and I remember I asked somebody so if I wanted to go in philanthropy and go back home to West Virginia and work in philanthropy in West Virginia where would I go and they said we can move to Pittsburgh and they said well why would I get to be in West Virginia and they said it's we often have to choose our battles in terms of where the money is and where the influence is and where helpful partners are which can lead to some resentment when you go to some of the smaller communities say we got this but the lack of infrastructure and support doesn't necessarily buoy that up you know one thing I don't think I'm telling anybody at this table things they don't know but I know folks come from different sectors I didn't want to do a bit of a pivot back to the data just briefly to say what this region has stacked against is not something we can sneeze at higher than average national unemployment especially in West Virginia but certainly in Pittsburgh as well low labor force participation so since 2015 West Virginia has more often than not had less than half of its working age population actually working so that's an extraordinary distinction that sets it apart from the rest of the country now Monogaly County has pretty high median income so this is a little bit of a weird microcosm but around you you don't right and the median income in your highest places like I think it's Berkeley and Monogaly are still 10 to 15 thousand dollars lower than the national median in Pittsburgh the median income is lower than the national median in West Virginia women 25 to 34 the largest group living in poverty so people in their prime working ages and people who want to be parents are unable to find any social mobility and sometimes social safety in Pittsburgh you have and this is no small thing two to four times as many metal workers and foragers and casters as they have any place else in the country including where I'm from and that's weird because out in Elkhart, Indiana that's pretty much what they do right they make components they make RVs out in the Midwest they make cars but Pittsburgh's got you beat and those are some of the most vulnerable jobs so we've just we're on a lot of very tenterhose here and finally I wanted to point out that the jobs in West Virginia that are held by the most people two out of three of them are among the most vulnerable you have nurses that's good nice and resilient lots of nurses in West Virginia you have cashiers and you have truck drivers and so you have vast swaths of people working in things that are kind of bad news and when I send you the digital packet if you nerd out about that sort of thing you'll look at the share of people in parts of West Virginia and in Pittsburgh you have one in three jobs at risk but in your less developed or depressed places in West Virginia you have two in three jobs at risk risk of disruption at risk of people not being able to to stay steady in that work and again sorry for the tiny print that was an AI pickup always pay attention to the aspect when you order a print you'll see that you have thousands of cashiers 20s of thousands of administrative assistants truck drivers tens of thousands of truck drivers in West Virginia and we don't know how that's going to change but we know it's going to change and it's going to change soon the educational attainment doesn't look so hot in either place Lumina Foundation would tell you that you want it to be at 60% by 2025 it's in the 40s in Pittsburgh it's in the 50s in the broader metro area it's in the 50s in Montaguele County but in some parts of West Virginia it's in 17% so you still are really far off from where you need to be because what we know is the people with the least education after high school and the people who earn the most are more likely to lose their job as the economy changes so that's all the rain on the parade stuff the good news is that there are major assets here and one of the major assets is the cross-sector commitment to equitable attainment and mobility I don't think I've ever seen a place better than the kind of Pittsburgh northern West Virginia region in talking about how education private sector philanthropy can work together to move people around you've got a lot of post-secondary innovation so I'm really glad that the university folks are with us West Virginia has always had to learn how to innovate to get people their education because it's just simply not been easy to get people to classes or to lay broadband and lay wire to get people their internet on you've talked about that's a great point coming into downtown Pittsburgh is something they may not do if they live in the outer ranks getting another education has always been a challenge and Pittsburgh institutions have done a good job you have a lot of natural tourism but this is the big finish and this gets us to the meat of our activity what you have in both places that is so valuable is a legacy of craft and artisans because what we know is more and more people are going to be contingent workers and working for themselves that entrepreneurialism if we craft it right can be really especially good for women who tend to be underpaid when they are not selling goods we also know that at the end of the day there are certain things humans just like better when people do them they like them to create something they like to know that somebody has touched the rooster print they like to know that somebody has blown a blast they like to go to boutiques while major retail collapses and they are doing okay because people like that experience and so I want to actually stop nattering on and talk to Jessica for a minute so we invited Jessica do you prefer Jess or Jessica we invited Jess last Jessica very much on purpose because she and I were talking about why investing in making a bet on people going off on their own pursuing creative fields might actually be really really good for the West Virginia economy so I'd love to have you talk a little bit about what Savage Grant is how we got started on this conversation and why we were interested in coming here today yeah so I work for I always have another hard time explaining where I work because I like to say I just work for a guy his name is Patrick and he owns the company called Savage Grant but that company in and of itself is one more of a holding company for other companies and so his whole thing with Savage Grant is that he wants to drive entrepreneurship and innovation and use market based solutions to solve the economic and social problems that we have in the area and so I think one of the key tenets of any entrepreneur understanding is that any problem is really just an opportunity if you look at it the right way and not being met and so that's a business option so that's kind of the premise of Savage Grant and as a part of that he owns two companies in Huntington and one based in Charlotte but the Charlotte one is really committed to remote work and employs a lot of people from the West Virginia area remotely and our goal is to like I said we have big problems so one of the companies is really focused on infrastructure which we see as being something that you know can't be outsourced somebody's not going to bring us our water or solve our water problems or infrastructure problems the other is human capital development and it's funny you mentioned the women thing one of our biggest area focuses on increasing the number of women working and finding options for helping women work to balance family and other issues alongside their jobs and tech communities from this region Central App which is one of the companies that best encompasses a lot of the ideas that we're talking about here is a marketplace that connects companies across the US with tech talent working remotely from the Appalachian region so you were talking about offshoring we're going after the offshore people and saying like we're not going to be able to compete with prices in India we're a heck of a lot more affordable and much better experience because you're not going to have the time zone lags you're not going to have the language barrier you're not going to have some legal rules sending data offshore so hire us we're qualified we're able to do this work and we'll still save you money in the long run so that company has been targeting communities focused on communities that have been severely affected by coal the economic downturn in coal and I was telling Molly one of the interesting things to us was when we first started we kind of made the assumption that we would be attracting a lot of people because we offer a lot of retraining programs who were unemployed or laid off coal miners and what we found instead is that we're attracting a lot of coal miners' wives which is awesome and so we're actually beading by far the representation of women working in tech than most companies are I think about 55% of our membership we call our talent exchange are women who identify as women and they love it because it offers flexible options we let people set their own hours we let them set the number of hours they want to work they can work from home so women who often have a lot of duties like childcare or eldercare are able to balance that with some of their other responsibilities and I think that in a lot of these communities traditionally most of the economic opportunity is on men because a lot of women are not going into the mines or into manufacturing jobs sometimes they do but more they don't and so they're kind of hungry for that career development and that work opportunity and so we've had a lot of women come to us and get this training and start working with us and I think that's really cool for a number of reasons one I think it speaks to that sort of contingent and flexible workforce but I think me personally to come here today is this intersection of creativity and technology because although I think we tend to see tech as being a replacement for jobs I don't think that we will be successful as a society if we just turn everything over to the robots like she was saying like there are just some things that people want other people to do they want to feel a connection of belonging and sense of community when you think about the problems that are to be met in the world so many of them relate to that sort of mazlows hierarchy of needs you want to feel safe, you want to feel connected you want to feel loved and that's not going to happen as much with technology and so I think there's a lot of opportunity for creative people makers to build those relationships and the other thing is when you talk a lot about AI one of the things that we look at a lot is some of the ways that can go wrong so we hear a lot about like AI bias my one of my coworkers daughter she's applying to go to MIT next fall and she wrote an essay on the idea that true innovation does not happen based on robots like machines are probably not going to innovate because what machines are really good at are looking at patterns and following the same procedure over and over or making connections between things that are common but innovation happens when you take two things that seem disparate and pull them together and find a new solution and so that's not something they're good at and so she uses the example of one of MIT's recent algorithms that they crafted it returns the result man is to computer scientist as woman is to homemaker but based on history that's true that's a fair observation when you take look at 200 years of work in the country but we're not going to move forward with things like that so it has to be people driving that it has to be creative thinkers it has to be people who are good at understanding relationships and empathy and human concerns and so I think that's that's why I hate that's fantastic and so I heard a lot of things there but I think you you have kind of brought together this sometimes cacophonous thing that gets us started in these meetings we talk about this data the sad stories we talk about the personal stories and the sense of community we talk about solutions and what you said is our opportunity in this region is to make sure people understand the value of their own creativity and understand that it has value in the artisan space in the public innovation space and the tech space and that the the one single thing is the value of the people that this is a people driven strategy so when people talk about future skills and the future of work we tell everybody to learn to code and in this region that has not gotten so hot and there's nothing wrong with coding per se but certainly the question, it begs the question did anybody ask them if they wanted to be coders they just decided that was the best pathway so Jessica from your perspective and the work that you do how do you break someone out of the mindset that to work in the future you have to focus on tech versus to work in the future you have to have the sort of creative mindset that makes for a good tech designer like how do you get around that yeah so one of the things I would say is that I would not recommend anybody to go learn to code at this point because it's another thing that's like cashier like computers have figured out how to code themselves most things are point and click at this point maybe there if you want to be with a really high level coder sure but if you're just trying to get a paying job I think that's becoming very commoditized but what computers still can't do is figure out what needs done so what we tell our people when we're recruiting for these jobs is what we need are people who have a lot of common sense who can relate to people who can communicate who can translate and who have a lot of empathy and understanding of what the end game is and how you want to get there and then how you can manipulate the technology to make that happen and that's just a tool. You learn to use it just like you would learn to use a hammer or a drill or whatever so we can teach you that part but the being able to think part and the being able to come up with new solutions that's a skill that you uniquely have and I think that's one of the things that we've used a lot because I think there's a bias against women in technology and sometimes women feel like they don't belong and we stress like you do this all day long you problem solve, you balance priorities, you figure out okay what do we really need to do and that's all you're going to be doing in this role they're a lot more comfortable. I would say again it's more on the creativity piece like the coding piece is just another repetitive task that can be done by machine. So you at the remake do a lot of work in making sure that kind of digital assets and technology in different ways of interacting with learning assets are on the table. How do you get around this question? Like getting people comfortable with tech but also preserving the creative legacy the creative thought, the human elements. It's always an everything of frustrating yes and creativity, human skills empathy, these are critical skills for the future but we cannot be understated that numeracy logic, statistics, algebraic mathematics and calculus are key elements. If you don't understand these things it doesn't matter how creative you are or how good it is you're using to use the tool. If it breaks you're effed, right? And there's not a lot of getting around to that and so it's a partnership of code and partnership of other human beings. So you need a salad of everyone with a mix of healthy and robust skills who know how to work together and often times culturally the way that those people are sorted and sifted in early education practices they're put on these different cultural tracks and that's what we see a lot of seasons happening. We need to be recoupled how math traditions are being taught the way artists are being taught and really force them to work together I think. I think that's a really good point. Whenever I say I would not say learn to code, but learn the thinking behind the coding with the math the sort of core concepts I think that's so important. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't need to talk past you in math. No, no. You made me think about something. That makes a lot of sense. I mean so numerously logic, math, spatial sense, creativity, sounds like a maker to me you're a visual artist. Do you think of yourself as a did anyone ever tell you you're really good logic, spatial sense, that's your thing or did they put you into a very specific column and say you're an artist. I'm a very good example because I'm very much well not that I believe in left-brain but I'm both. Yeah. Which is amazing and that's awesome. Did people build, did they tell you that? Did you always, did you have a lot of support around you saying this is a good thing you're using both sides of your brain, you can you're capable. You're both brain you're amba-brained. No. Yeah, I figured it out. I just didn't know what I wanted to do and I'm like to me it stems from curiosity. It's another important element. Sabrina, what about you? You're a curious person. You seem curious about everything. Yeah, I am. Did people tell you you were creative? Well, that's not a word that people used. I'll tell you I'm just trying to summarize in a little package here things that people have said in the past and now because I'm very I'm very curious for some reason no matter what has happened to me I've always learned to learn love to learn so it's been a miracle in itself all the things that go through but when I was a kid I didn't know anybody who went to college. So Paul just said that y'all were saying like I'm coming from a hole I'm coming from way behind the game here. People at my church, my family my teacher Sartney kindergarten said she's smart now I didn't believe I was smart. I was born legally blind. People didn't know this that I was wrong. I'm contacts in. It's just a whole nother of a processing issue going on here which has been a blessing as well the way I process information. It's very hard but I've learned to master it. They said she's going to be the one to figure out how to solve these problems. They could see how I was thinking and I was very quiet because they could see it. They watched me and they said she's going to be the one to go to college. There's no colleges in the Gall County. So I didn't know what college was. They said it I believe it. I'm the first and only person in my family graduating from high school. My wife is so hard and so challenging that it's a miracle. If you can graduate high school and now I think they're just pushing people to say oh ninety-some percent graduating high school so they can get more pregnant. But I mean that's the truth of the matter because it makes them look so bad. I'm the first and only in my family to get a bachelor's degree. I was in 2008 taking on the procession and I had worked all these minimum wage jobs and that's what I had to do. And I did it. I'm just going to have a lot of my life not having a car. I did have them now but it's been a huge struggle. So people said I would be the one to learn to solve these problems. I think like a detective. I ask a lot of questions. I do think that things that people don't want to talk about because we gotta figure this out. You know I don't know if y'all know this or not. I don't know if anybody has been in McAll County but it is the lowest part of this state. You know up here it's like you're on top of the mountain. Down there you're down in the valley with all the mountains on top of you. And you don't know what it is in the world. And it's almost like we have been, I'm telling my friends to live in Morgantown about this. I say this last night. We've been talking about this this morning. It's like I figure the coal barons just made us so afraid to leave the haulers. And there's no Interstate Road that connects Mercer County to McDowell. So it has taken me so long to be able to get into a room like this. Because of like PTSD, all the anxiety, feeling like I don't feel like this now like I don't matter. Like I'm living but I don't deserve you know things. I went to New York City twice and I was in high school I was so scared. I mean such a culture shock. I almost got left there. I mean there's been people being mean to me like no matter what I'm doing. It's from where I'm from. My voice, red hair. I mean you name it. It's like it's been stacked against me. But I'm pretty good figuring out five or six different ways to make something work that other people cannot see. With the creativity that's what I'm good at. I'm a networker. I'll make things work that you've never in your life would see something happen. Even if I can't see a way, I'm getting the middle of it and I will figure it out. Can I explain all the steps how to do that? Not really. But the relationships and the empathy, something the easiest thing for me to do is the relationships I'm on. I don't even have to try to do that. And I was a baby born in an incubator for two months. Nobody could touch me or nothing. So they say these babies that are born without touch and everything else and that could be a reason why I had such anxiety starting out. They don't turn out real good. They're not empathetic. They're not loving. I'm a pretty loving person. You know, I try to treat people how I want to be treated. And one of those things that I do is I will tell people whether they want to know it or not, what they need to know. And a lot of people will get mad at that at first, but I know what it's like to struggle and suffer and wish somebody touched on me. So with creating let me tell you what I can do. Besides all that I can write songs. I don't know all the notes that go to it. Technically but I can tell you how it sounds. I can sing it. I've probably written thousands by now. I mean they just come to me. I can write stories. I can see the strengths, talents, and skills in other people. I spend five minutes with you. I go, okay, you're good with this. You're good with that. Are you working on this? You know, like and where I'm at in Mercer County, my best friend, I'll show you a picture she drew of me. I was going to use it as my book cover, but she's got two kids. She's married working at Pizza Hut 50 hours a week. She is artistically talented in all kinds of ways that I'm not. She can draw, paint, take old broken pieces of wood, turn them into amazing works of art, furniture, sell them for $20 or $30, trying to help pay her a lantern meal, trying to buy food, draws everything at the school. It's just going to create a community garden and has a garden. Like, just going to all this stuff with like, no money, no technological changes and I'm like, well, this is what I think of her. And I've been showing her I can do this and I used to think I couldn't either. If she had a website where she could post her art and this stuff, people like y'all are all around the world and be paying her a lot of money for her Appalachian art down there in McBow County, see a mama rocket, you know, down there with hardly nothing but hopes and dreams and visions in her head that she is making come true. But with all that being said, the internet is so low down there. So when they see what I do, probably seen some of what I've done on my page, I am like a networker, community organizer, I mean it's like magic and I do it, people, I make one post that doesn't even give all the details. Here's an example, I talked about and this is like not a topic everybody wants to talk about, but it's something that needs to be talked about. It's helped me grow a lot and it's starting to help me heal. One of the things that happens to me when I'm a junior high is a group of kids who help me yell at school bus and really try to lessen it. So I made a post about it, so many people, males and females, are telling the stories now and they are never able to talk about how they need to get insulted, sex with kids, but what true to this for me, I don't know what y'all think about Donald Trump, but this is just what I have put, November 13th, I made this post the first reason why I'm against Donald Trump is he sexually harasses women. This man at the gym the next day sexually assault me. It's been a blessing because I have stuffed all this stuff down and not talking about it and making this fit. Now I'm starting to recover from this and all these other people who are in therapy that are actually addicted. I'm not, but they're helping me and I'm helping them and it's just this big old thing. Y'all didn't know me before this and what I do on my page is I just tell the truth and I'm talking about what's right and what's wrong and what we should do about it. I have about 4,600 people on my page since I started talking these people gravitated to me and I didn't meet Molly because I tweeted about Whitney Cummings talking crap about West Virginia and I barely politely told her she didn't know what she was missing out on. And that's how I got connected to her was through my Twitter and I hadn't been doing big things on Twitter but it's become a pretty amazing job. Santa's following me now and I'm like it's amazing just because I've opened my mouth. Yesterday I talked to some people at the beauty shop and I'm just doing it. I don't like doing it yet. Y'all can't tell but it's like pulling on my spine like it's not an easy thing to do. It may look like it is, but it's not yet. It does get there but I was talking about being sexually assaulted and things I'm having to try to do to help defend and protect myself. Because I see that if this man gets away doing what he did to me there's a whole, I call it archetype of people that thinks they're going to be able to do that too. And so I'm standing up for myself and doing whatever I can to try to prosecute this guy which is also leading to people in the past that may be prosecuted who hurt me. And all these other women are going to end up in males they're going to end up doing the same thing. So that's the kind of power we have. I told the ladies the beauty shop well I did not know this was powerful and they're going, yeah and I'm like okay let's organize the women in the streets, tens of thousands. Quit doing all this work. Quit being the secretaries for the lawyers and the doctors. You know they're mostly men, no offense. And the women are killing themselves. We've then learned how to work, take care of the family clean the house, pay all the bills and do everything. And we're like getting treated like the worst. So Sabrina this is one, thank you for sharing your story. As always. But two you bring up something really important and that is what is a maker. So you are a creator of lots of different things and one of the reasons we bring together a comfortable thing about human-centered design is that it flows, right? But one of the reasons we wanted to bring a diverse group of voices around this table to start a conversation that's ongoing that Remake and WVU are leading about how you recognize making as an important marketable thing is we need to understand how people see themselves as makers and help other people more people see themselves the way you see you. And so we're going to go through a little makers journey here but I wanted to start by asking the question asking somebody do you consider yourself a maker what is a maker? And so Sabrina I heard some things in your story I heard influencer kind of community organizer influencing other people to take action to take personal action or political or social action we've heard around the room artists lots of makers are artists I heard a lot just from you solvers like a maker someone who can make a good pie even though my pie was not that great from our first exercise sometimes there are technical problems they're designers they're storytellers what else? when I say maker Maggie what's a maker? oh with your mouth full sorry I think it can be anybody that creates something whether that's like a sleep problem a website a piece of design music any kind of share hard product project so any creator definitions that you want to make sure you get on the board about what's a maker? my favorite is who I am is a cheapskate that would cost me a whole lot of money and I can make it for one tenth that amount I'm going to call it self sustainer but I like cheapskate too yeah someone who can take care of themselves yeah it's resource poor resource poor so you're a maker out of necessity so those are survivors of healing too like you become a maker and try to navigate your pain process not the same thing works for everyone we're still like really beginner as far as assessing like trauma and ACEs and everything especially here and a lot of the programs my previous hat was a generation one that works with syndrome oh great I thought I recognized you so it was like to make sure of all these reasons I guess I'm at this table but we have now realized that we need to go with our programs because the people that are like getting attracted to that like you said they're hungry for career development they're hungry for the different pieces of the program not just like to code or to develop software they're hungry for all the other pieces and then like most of the classes also deal with coming in with caring and everything however it hasn't worked for them traditional like workplaces haven't worked for them for whatever reason and the healing process makes you a bigger and we don't talk about that enough because it's a strength that we have I like that you talked about trauma you know the trauma can make you creative because you're desperate it's real what makes someone a maker it's what made me open my mouth six years ago and that's how everything that's happened after I opened my mouth has come together that's why I have this book now holler to the hill I need to publish I'm hoping to publish in January that's one of my main reasons for being here to make me open to help me figure that out you know I write the questions you ask about what is preventing you from slowing down from that I've had this book written for two years well that's the first part I wish I could finish any book so when we talk about I don't want to leave you out I mean a lot of these are things that I would say I'll add tinker people who make things with scratch people who are able to find the raw materials and build things and have that kind of patience instill them to do that work I like that word tinker it conveys a love of craft to an exploration which I think is really important a craft person, a curious person Donna and Ani I don't mean to ignore you either since I'm with my back to you I'm more interested in what folks around the table have to say I think this is great I just always think it's identifying a need or a want and going forward a person who connects the need and want to action that's great so lots of different different kinds of ways to be a maker which is great we talked a lot this morning at some point I'm sure some of you are thinking why are we talking about this we talked a lot about labor market data and post-secondary attainment data and we talked about that because we need to talk about how people do all of these things are all of these makers and can survive can sustain themselves or a family so a maker for pay does that bother anybody or is it necessarily can it necessarily be a way to make income maker for pay, people comfortable with that concept I think people are so talented and I've always just hear that we should expect people to pay for our work I think we've been too grateful and humble to not realize that what we have are amazing gifts and talents my best friend and I'm going to add it for at least five years now five years ago when I went to see her it was during hard time for me, I couldn't even talk when I went to see her she said well I figure my art is going to become famous after I die and I'm going to die again so I've got to hurry up and teach my kids everything so they know how to take care of themselves because I'm going to die again and that is a liar I need you to live I can't do this by myself and now she believes in herself and she's working she's working and trying to get better and trying to figure out ways where she's at to rise up it's just taking time I just feel like after my book is published I will be able to pay all of her bills and help her create a website and help her learn how to use this technology that in my area we really haven't had access to and I don't have y'all know I married a guy who got three bachelor degrees at the same time computer science business management and accounting he used to think that he wasn't going to be able to help people and in the last five years he has worked at the nonprofit hospital in Lester County and I teach for him and he's responsible for everybody getting paid and he's creating all this software and all this stuff again where he's not really paying his value either working all the time so that's another thing it's not that people aren't working when you talk about the jobs they're doing all kinds of work they're just not really getting paid for that's a really important point so I asked like why pay so it's valuable both to the market and it's personally valuable it preserves culture it helps us question things or expand opportunity it connects generations it contributes to the economy it employs people it improves and transcends technology good makers can be good designers of good consumer tech it requires resources really great thank you it requires resources that we have to pay people so that they can be makers if we want them to do all these other things for us it develops skills skills that give us a workforce that we want so here in the last 40 minutes or so we have together I want to take some of these things we've talked about some of the personal stories we've heard because when Lisa developed the series and I love it it was all about connecting stories connecting our humanities experiences and personal stories to action and I want to walk a person through this so let's just call this person give me a name give me a good regional name come up with an imaginary person Louisa I love it okay so we have Louisa let's assume first that Louisa has never heard the idea of maker if you say hey Louisa are you a maker she said what's a maker what could we get Louisa to do through programs you know about through ideas you have to see herself as a maker how do we get her to try making this is a personal free flow and creative exercise there's no wrong answer Louisa tries making to me you're assuming that Louisa doesn't have a background and so I think the first thing for me would be to find out who she is because there's probably something that she does already that makes her a maker she probably doesn't consider it how does she have that conversation Chip well I I think it's hard to have a conversation with yourself so I mean if you're conversing with her you could sort of open up and find out more about her because if you find out who she is you can find that connection point to the ways that she's created in her life I love that I have a similar question that was bubbling when I started with the word maker or maker culture which is an established male dominated culture that has co-opted the word in the culture of people so why are we starting with that instead of starting with people I like that idea so is this the word are we trying to get people to fit into a construct that exists right or get people to see themselves as all of these things that you said made up a maker that's a great question Ani so is this even the word is this the construct I mean I have to tell you that coming here a few years ago I'm never being in West Virginia my first chore, my first task was we had a project at the place where I worked to create maker spaces at several locations in West Virginia when I went to Huntington and then we went further and further into the hills and hollers of West Virginia and I realized that the further we got into the hills and hollers the more that they were able to teach us about making because it's not called making it's called life they do it every day in order to survive and in order to do the things that they do so for us it was a you know gut check it's like we're coming in assuming we know things and committing a suicide right? I love that and it's not that the phrase isn't highly marketable right and they're a greater, larger whatever the word is economy but those are different things that is a great point so one of the things that we talk about when we walk somebody through one of these scenarios is how does the community need to change for somebody to be able to be mobile and navigate it well the community needs to we have some assumptions to challenge we have to change our language and our assumptions we don't impose making we learn from it it exists we find it we discover it maybe we do leverage it but we don't realize on it right so that's a really great question so if we wanted Louisa to see herself to see opportunity in her traits and skill sets and background not to say not to like sit down and say plug into this but we wanted to see opportunities in what she is I tried to write down some places like where would she have the conversations that Chip's talking about maybe at the museum maybe if I stopped by an exhibit maybe at the library maybe at church maybe at school are there you all know the local context way better than I do if I were around the region if I'm in Pittsburgh if I'm Louisa and I'm in Pittsburgh if I'm Louisa and I'm in Wheeling who who even tells me to be curious about I think remake learn I really do that would be my go to and I think that's a great point and when I got out here we got into this project and we learned everything that remake does no kidding that is quite a network so knowing that and for people Ani and Donna who aren't as familiar with remake around the table how would a person know to go to the the remake learning days how do they connect to that there's a lot of marketing I don't underestimate the investments that we make into our communications and it's good and it's bad it means that the brand is really powerful but it also means the brand overshadows things and projects so that's something that we have to really careful and mindful about which is why eating together is such an important practice and what we do in community building is such an important practice so that when Donna so graciously says something like to remake learning I can say yes Donna because you are part you are remake learning and Chip is remake learning and Stacey and everyone around this table is and could be remake learning it's not about a team of six facilitators that does any of that work just push it up yeah that's a great point so we try we can get Louisa could have this conversation ostensibly because you've got a culture and an infrastructure that really builds it up challenging question this is a person who doesn't live here who's what would stop Louisa from connecting with y'all what are the barriers are there any culture is a huge one absolutely innovation and even equity cultures are still have very real cultural boundaries but I think we need to be careful and aware of and then knowing who to ask and feeling comfortable to ask them gamekeeping is a very serious part of any sort of system and then having something that's viable and tangible on the other side networking is great and I believe that it's my work it's my life but if you don't naturally have networking skills I don't necessarily have the coaching capability to teach you how to do it and that's a big flaw in this system as well we're going to be open and honest about what those challenges are there are logistics challenges too especially in like southern west virginia like we love the women that we work with a lot of them we had open houses and very few of them actually came to an open house but they don't have time when they're looking for flexible options they don't have time to like schedule find childcare so trying to find a way to make things more self or more flexible and accessible how do you reach classroom teachers when lunches are during the day and then they have to go home and tend to their lives and their unions tell them that they can't any other time so if anyone has an answer to that one you know I'm all ears that's a great question so you've highlighted a category of things that would need to be different to grow someone's capacity to see themselves this way and every time this is actually why we stopped doing kind of pure automation conversations because the answer is always the same we build a million programs we build a system we build a million programs there's no third shift childcare we build a million programs and people who have the least money have the least time and so these are really important logistical questions and when you're doing your outreach and programming for makers time, transit, childcare cost work around schedules even their work identity so if they're a teacher they're being asked to be 40 different things to people all the time so those are really important so this is why I love these they flow so back here on how you get Melissa to see she's a maker it's important to ask people what are your favorite things to do and what do you love a lot of people love to do their favorite things and then you touch on transportation not everybody in the bus may not even go there they don't have a car the number one barrier that I had seen being a person who came from where I did and had the education that I had that most people around me don't have is the professional lingo people hear my hiccups and hear how I talk and they think I don't understand everything they're saying but I do I want to make sure the people who don't have the education know what the heck is going on and I stopped using that professional lingo six years ago because I sort of think I think I'm better than them they don't know what I'm saying like for example a couple of ladies from Bernie Sanders office came to Medell County and that was some people I know and they were like oh my gosh you're having bad mom's t-shirts and you don't have health insurance you can get that through the marketplace and she's been there looking at them and I'm like mom doesn't know what you're talking about that sounds like a place to go get groceries and she can't get on one and go and try to sign up for this marketplace because when it rains she loses all connection and she doesn't have internet so we're in the Gall County here like this is like impossible for the people who live here to go by that system that's a great point so that's a count under logistics kind of broadband infrastructure network activity but also social capital so whether it's higher education attainment or understanding you could be a maker but ultimately if we went through a scenario that took her into business or entrepreneurship who's going to buy her stuff and who's going to think it's interesting so in terms of social capital what exists Donna if you could build a magic wand and create like a social capital making machine for the people in this region what would it look like you know I think it's things that have already been touched on and those kinds of things being able to communicate that's the key to it and when we're going back to remake learning what would prevent you from doing about remake learning I think it's lack of social capital and the fact that they might not have heard of it and then when they hear of it it's touchy feeling in a way sort of like public education collaborative is people are like what is it just like maker what does that even mean we love the idea of a maker culture and a maker space and it's a great economic answer based on what we talked about this morning but maybe we don't call it that that might be a real boon so one of the things that you mentioned social capital and networking one of the things we talked about recently in northern Indiana to entrepreneurs of color to answer this question was what's a simple thing we could all do and one thing we all agreed to do is the next time we get invited someplace we take two people with us that don't look like us which can sound like a goofy navel-gazing exercise but in a small enough place like South Bend Indiana to be invited to some fundraiser and if I'm a white woman to take a black woman with me and a Latino man might actually expand their network but I'm going to have to write some blank checks and it's still not a simple answer because how do you know where to find people who don't look like you we all tend to hang out with people who look like us so one of the other things you've mentioned a lot is communication getting rid of the jargon how much is their value as people around this table think about how to kind of expand your own programs and your own networks in either telling people listen stop using the jargon or do you train people to start using the jargon like do you do both I don't think you should too come out at both ways it's so much easier to connect with somebody if you notice like if you're around mall and fall let me tell you mall and fall used to race horses and have horse shows they're in a lot of videos and people who look at them and just judge them like they kick up cans all the size of the road they're constantly busy and if you see the things that mall designs in her yard like she puts goldfish in her pond she's got a little fisherman in there I'm just like this is awesome they're creating stuff they're busy like on this other level but I'm not even thinking about how they create stuff like that but I'm sorry I can't remember what I'm starting out with mom, Paul, jargon so if you go in there and you don't say any words that relate to the end you can't help him because there's nothing in that connection I think it's important to mention too that mom, Paul have their own jargon that we should learn and Paul is a cattle farmer and a gardener who I'm obsessed with and I don't think he understands why I like him so much but I'm like you have all of this knowledge and no one else does like I need to absorb this from you like tell me everything and he humors me I was like oh back to the city and not people who don't want to make you feel bad so they're very funny they're uplifting they make you feel good there are some people that have helped me do what I'm doing they're like I see a silver lining over you they have a lot of Native American heritage so they'll speak in those times some people will think they're crazy but they're still parts of the culture that's still there even though it's basically been destroyed or obliterated from that area Stacey that is really interesting and screeny you've doubled down on it the two way language learning so what do we expect people to understand in the past and think tanks are very guilty of this so I'll out new America you do journalism around something you say here is a story about a person from West Virginia who blows glass isn't that interesting listen to how they talk but it can be like parachute journalism very outsider kind of fetishizes these fascinating people there's something you should take from this you should change your behavior does anybody because we can solve this we can leave this room and say does anybody have an idea about how you get away from icky fetishized rural tourism journalism and into a way that translates it commission people from here commission local writers yep that's exactly right so commission local journalists bring them into your world that two way language learning is important and Stacey you got something to add yeah I think it's like a core principle of this I think understanding that tech is not just software application development but like glass blowing is technology work we all used for our salaries at lunch was technology and at one time it was like the most the newest technology but like everything has been innovated from something else and there's still people innovating in the glass blowing industry there's still technology to be understood you know it's all different all the different spectrums of engineering material mechanical it's all interwoven and that goes into the home chef who's making pumpkin pie in their kitchen to the artist who is mixing pigments like it's embedded in all of it, it's all technology and I think making that less scary and understanding that like me as somebody who has a fine arts background a whole bunch of engineering PhDs I still play I still come to work every day and I keep up with those people and not in spite of my background but because of it we all have something to get we go back to the two-way communication thing too and the general respect and being epithetical to other people but I think de-stigmatizing the technology in general as a word is important I think there's a whole saying that people do because they're not good enough to be old and old technologies are really phenomenal and if you learn how to use old technologies it's as valuable sometimes as learning a new technology can be I think there's another thing that I would sort of underscore and that is that maybe one way to really get underneath this is if you're going to work with a community pull a self-organized subset of that community together and do exactly this gather around the table and ask just a simple question which is what are your aspirations for your community and then shut up let them talk and they'll probably tell you four or five things that you should do for them but if you just go back and see let's go back to that original question what are your aspirations for your community what do you mean by my community what do you mean by your community really listening hard and actively to what what they say you may uncover some of their assets that they have but then also tap into a very deep set of wants and needs that you wouldn't know otherwise that you go in and assume oh what we need is more infrastructure and you need this and maybe university or you can create all sorts of solutions to problems that may not exist but if you can actually tap the strengths and assets that are there in the community first then you find interplays in ways that a network could actually help because no one single organization or one single person has all the answers it has to be it has to come from the community that you want to help and based on what their aspirations are we want a better life for our kids great, let's talk about that five wise why is that and really look for those assets that exist because they do exist in all these communities and then finding that is a stepping stone to build out from that so key in facilitating that well right if one smile too much don't be too long shut up can I interject and add something to that so there have been organizations and nonprofits and people over the past six years come to MacDowell County and ask these questions what are your dreams and what did you do and they go and create these programs where people who don't live there get to be the bosses and they want all the people down there can all get paid and be a part of all their meetings so they're doing everything they can to survive then they come to these meetings and they put everything there and then the people it's like they take and they they don't give nothing back which is the rest of the case that's what we go on somebody from the outside coming in and telling you I'm gonna bring these people in get everybody there just so they can see what's happening at the meeting look what these people get to do why don't we try to do this we have to take what we can do create something and sell it so we can that's why I'm coming with my books my albums I know I can make shows I just don't know how to record this up myself you know I've been in documentary so I'm like having to figure out how to do all this stuff from underground that's what I call it they say on the ground I'm like I'm down here I don't just want to be here I'm gonna solve it up here so I'm having to figure all this out so anyway that's what's been going on one of the things though people who haven't been asked what are your dreams and I've been asking the younger people what are your dreams and they're like what do you mean when I dream of at night I'm like well if it's a good dream yeah but look back on your life and look back when you were a kid what did you hope for like if your dreams were come true what would that look like so I'm trying to get them to write those down because if we could tell other people I mean for me when I was 5 years old I mean I started a lot in my life I didn't know how to put this in words but it can be any gardens everywhere well you got people coming from West Virginia State University telling you you gotta spend $30 on a pot to put this stuff the pot ain't there and you gotta go to another county to buy the pot to put seeds in it to grow it they're like whatever we're gonna just grow it in the ground over at which may have and so that's where we're at nobody's coming in and just saying oh this is a solution let's give you what you need you can do it yourself after we show you what to do everybody wants paid right, right it's a business and I'm not against it being paid but it's like being a one sided thing yeah I mean you're raising a really important question the most important question is don't ask a question you don't mean to act on the answer too right, like you gotta listen to people and you gotta vest the authority and the money in the locals and so when you're thinking about how not to be a, oh please yeah please this is something I've been thinking about with people saying they wanna help MacDowell County I think they need to go live there for one month not a week, not a day one month and you can bring all your money and your cars and all your phones and everything and I want to see you go down there and live for one month you gotta go in and I'll even introduce you to some people and then you go and see how it is cause you just, you can watch a video or whatever, you can stay the night with somebody and everybody is gonna treat you probably the best you've ever been treated in your life no matter how you treat them they're gonna treat you good then you're gonna see, you know and he's like, oh I was a visitor yeah you should afford billions of dollars and I mean Dowell County whatever else she went but she didn't, we got Head Start which I'm grateful for, but hey we need more than Head Start and we need more than that and they're taking all that away now so, you know, like we gotta do something we gotta do something different and do something better so that's what I'm thinking so the next time some politician says they wanna help I'll be like you know I need to come down here and live for a month and everything, wait on you but come down here and see how the system is because how I feel is if we don't start helping places like McGow County the rest of the world is already going in that direction this will be the best pilot program people will say, oh let's just do Northport no, there's 18,000 people there six years ago there was 22,000 people so about 4,000 people died these are people I grew up with that I love and they're gone and the people around me are done so why can't we do a pilot project in McGow County and help them be the makers I think that's exactly it so one of the things when and it's not lost on me right, New America is in DC right and that I'm here because I'm from West Virginia and I said I think we should do something in West Virginia but I shouldn't be the one to do the thing right for the reasons that we've talked about but what I can do and what I think New America wants to do is get these messages in front of the people who are often looking for ways to spend their money right, how do we spend money what do we do, can we have a fellowship program and so the fellowship program left out at me and whether that is a fellowship for makers or leaders so talk to me about and that's, and I've heard Generation West Virginia right yeah, so what did what did what did that fellowship program need from the outside world right from Lucky Loose that it didn't get, was it money often times, what else did you name it's like the employer partnership so every employer because a lot of what we were talking about is like yeah it's great to create like skill building exercises but a lot of those don't work because they're just like oh here's your skills we'd like getting a job so a lot of it is the employer partners are all in different industries and even two that are in the same industry have a totally different hiring process navigating actually educating companies on hiring and expediting that for certain professions that get hired sooner and companies that will take the top graduates of WVU and ship them to Pittsburgh or somewhere else because they're going to hire quicker that was one of the biggest theories I ran into on like the behind the scenes part of this program is that we were losing our best and brightest because we weren't as involved as other hiring and there are great models yeah yeah so that was the goal of the program was to be a better connector between what's actually available in the job market and then what skill sets folks that want to live here have and then supporting them through the full year of the fellowship with the transition into a new place even if they're from West Virginia they might be from Charleston living in Parkersburg if they're not from West Virginia half of the most recent cohort were transplants so helping them navigate that through other West Virginians and not them thinking that they're coming to save the community the fellowship was designed for you year long it's four days of work of volunteer Friday every Friday so you were getting immersed in the community and they were the experts guiding you through your volunteer process they get matched through the volunteer Friday and Sarah was actually there before I was even hired but she was the first to fill one of them through the program like that for generations yes as a fellow in the program when you were looking around at the resources you had and the experience you were having and clearly you're a great leader and it's made you an even better leader and you're here and we're grateful what would you have added like if you could have just put a wish list in the mailbox and gotten something back more money, more fellows, more community as a fellow on the ground as a fellow not because of the quality of the program but because of the community and honestly people like us like the non-profit kind of industrial complex that looks around and says oh what do we do what do you need to help support the initial infrastructure it's actually a pretty self-sustaining within the state and that companies they work and it's something that you know I like the fact that it doesn't necessarily have to go they don't need a grant to see other bigger organizations but the fact that they're looking within the state and not seeking someone outside to come in I asked the question so it's how would you like to see more people benefit is it possible how would that be possible more spots more spots that increases the number shedding light on the fact that there's this huge gap there are young people who really want to stay but feel like they don't have any opportunity and then there are companies all across the state that need people they need bodies they have jobs and they say they're finding them good and in my work I see this all the time across all kinds of different industries in the state there's this huge gap and it's because there wasn't a match made and so this fellowship is the first entity stepping into the space and saying like let's do the connecting and you know you might not be able to stay in your same community but within the state it's like showing there is a ton of opportunity because just the people aren't talking to each other helps reveal sort of the hidden infrastructure of these industries yeah just what jobs are available like industries don't post their jobs like there's so many employers that don't post their jobs for instance I know I have friends who are made of West Virginians who say who is an architect and she says I'd love to come back and live in West Virginia but I just can't get a job as an architect in West Virginia that's right and you could say that for any industry that young people just don't necessarily see the opportunity here when it's there they're just not connected to it well there is a I've been seeing posts about guys in Bel County talking about how they went about the coal training there's the coal jobs about getting the jobs and they're saying I'll work the whole first month for free and they're still not hired they're showing up they're not hired let me say you gotta be somebody's relative and you're always going to interact and they're like desperate and have jobs they got a wife and kids and they don't know what to do like I'm trying not to do the same wrong thing I'm basically like I might have to start selling drugs I mean they're like really desperate so there are a couple things that play in what just came up one is pulling the curtain back on kind of the industry infrastructure the inside or industry stuff you know we do some work with burning glass people locally who do it like who can tell you when jobs aren't being posted why like what's out there even outside of what's available in you know what an aggregator or crawler can tell you but the need to kind of just return local money to local efforts when people ask what they can do putting their pressure and using their social capital on employers seems like a big one to create more spots to start helping employers see the talent argument which is a great role and I know it's a role that WVU plays is saying we have talent in this state that we can credential and certify in different ways the talent is here you have an obligation to ask the employers to start doing some lift here right? they don't necessarily have someone to take over their business if it's woodworking business or someone to learn the ropes they'd be willing to take on apprentices but they don't know anyone in their community who you know they don't and then the flip side of the point is there are young people all across the state who are saying I would love to be an artist but there's just no can't do that here because they don't know those other people so again you need someone to fill that void and say oh no it might not be in your exact community but did you know there's a woodworker in the two counties over or a glass blower or a fiber artist or you name it we have a hope issue here I have this argument with my boss he's like we just need to create jobs I'm like yeah we do but if we don't address the trauma if we don't address the centuries of disappointment and like make people believe again they're just going to say I can't do that here or it's not going to work there's a lot of fear and there's also a lot of fear I think because of the scarcity that a lot of people have a mindset problem where people are really worried and that's hindering entrepreneurship that's hindering innovation because they're not willing to take a chance and they don't have any safety nets I mean it's really hard to ask somebody who doesn't have any money to take a chance and so I think if we were going to try to apply some sort of assistance yeah but I think almost having like incubators for more creative companies like you went for a tech company would be are there creative there are in a lot of ways so I want to make sure that I'm not stepping all over something who are the creative incubators here like where do those I think a remake is one oh sure yeah they were actually going to be here today so that's a good one so R-C-B-I is a good incubator other incubators I mean maybe I'm not connected as well but for something that would go safe that's supposed to be like a faint thing that puts to help people start business and stuff and then it's a county I live in but I don't know anymore yeah there's the Hive in Beckley most of our state colleges have smaller programs that are working in this sphere there are artist residency programs arts and conservancy and many other artist residencies but you want to go back to when makers were studio artists there's a whole infrastructure of things that connected those people to resources but I do want to speak to what you said about trauma for a second because I think that something you said about being like maybe think of how you have to be so fanatical about what you're making to be a good maker to rise above the others and actually have a self sustained business like you basically have to be obsessive like you have to be kind of an obsessive tinker but to go from someone who is coming from trauma to get to that level is such a far stretch and I think the more intermediary things like incubators whatever else can be put in between is helpful but it is so such a far stretch I don't know that we do the best job either at celebrating the successes because you know there's that psychological stat that for every negative thing you have to your six positive things to offset it and think about like I think we do celebrate successes here but we've got to do it at such a bigger level because from the outside in we're definitely the underdog and all you hear are negative stories coming from here and so if you're trying to magnify the positive by six times we almost need to be obsessive about being like this person does this they succeed it they overcame this so that you can start to believe that you can make that leap we're talking about being like liaisons to connect people but number one what this area needs is that where I'm at it's mentors so you know we're talking about languages everything like I'm being a mentor to everybody everywhere I go keeping people out I don't know do you know about this you know I'm like I'm telling you I'm like and my husband says you have every person you meet and if you decided to work above it it's the rest of your life let me tell you what you need to do yeah absolutely so I do want to notice that we're in time and I know people have places to be feel free to hang out and keep talking and keep telling me things because this is incredibly helpful but I wanted to say a couple things in closing one is this was meant to be kind of a first intimate salon to help connect some people who maybe aren't talking although a lot of you are but also to help me make some decisions if I'm being honest so I've got some re-granting that I need to do and I'm doing it in West Virginia and I'm trying to figure out where is a good investment and I think I've got some ideas but I also am trying to offer New America's tech and journalism platform in a new way to support some of the work that you've talked about today so are there stories that you want told by a local journalist right that we could promote, publish and push out there what would be a smart way to do that we don't have to do it right you know just New America has this platform we'd be happy to use it for this but I would kind of defer to the community about whether or not that's the right move and I don't think one lunch is enough to get there another purpose of today is to kind of tee up another conversation that's happening in the region courtesy of Remake and WVU around makers getting their due kind of in terms of certifications and credentials and currency and so I wanted to start this conversation so I could plug into that and get my feet under me before I participate with those folks but also in closing I just want to thank you a lot it is a weird thing to come to a table with a random think tank and a random woman West Virginia and share your personal stories and try and help her and us understand whether this is a thing we should chase I'm having this conversation in other states about craft manufacturing economies and what it looks like in different places and of all the places I wanted to make sure we're in that network we wanted to make sure West Virginia was one of them if it's appropriate so feel free to hang out and keep talking but I know lots of people have to hit the road in places to be I would love to hear back from you face to face one on one this was a waste this was great or I'd like to have another conversation and I'd like to have a conversation with these people because my network I did live here a long time but I've lived in Indy for 20 years and my network isn't what it used to be so I need your help in figuring out if you have more chances like this what should they look like but open the floor for gut reactions or parting words I love this I think it's phenomenal you're a great facilitator by the way but one thing that keeps eating at me it's just my own personal thing being a classroom teacher for 24 years I'm just wondering what we can do to get students to this level you know what it almost sounds like you all were born with the gifts that you have but I know that's not true as a teacher it's hard to teach those things even though I like to think I did some version of it in my classroom but I don't know if that's part of what you do, Molly or what you think about or if that's something we're going to do with the pre-service part but it just somehow I'd love to just talk more about it yeah, that's self-identity they're connecting under kids and show them they can do that so that way they're working on their hopes and dreams while they're a kid and not 29 years old and realize they went by the world system like I did and if I did everything the same way they taught me to do I wasn't ever going to succeed and that resonates and then too when they were talking about coding coding is not important it's the thinking behind it how do we get kids to that level because they're not born that way usually yeah, the thing like that that's a great point so I've got a lot of parking lot issues it is my favorite thing when these sessions don't follow the math because those are always the best ones and capture this in a narrative way and feed it back to you and some of those will be parking lot questions especially for future conversations there is a future conversation I believe we've picked the date January 28th I'll tell you but it's a busy group yeah, to pick that back up any other parting shots, parting questions yes we don't have to be there so let me know if somebody else this resource is going to be spent so that you could throw something like this there's a student like this we don't get asked about our hopes and dreams and what are our favorite things to do and there's not any kind of like tests to access what we're really good at and if we can help other people that makes us happy but we need our help to get the wall of mind because we're not taught to help everybody else and not yourself so the past six years that's where I've been having to learn is how do I help myself how do I love myself I'm in love with everybody else and I know I'm empty and how do I do it and how have I been climbing out of the hole and I appreciate it I feel like I've got my head like cracks cracks I'm still not out of it I'll tell everybody else that looks like I'm fine but I don't know how I feel and what I'm trying to figure out to be in this hall where you be the change you wish to see and I said thank you and I've got all and so there were certain things teachers did and we got to make it that's where you open up and I was like no that's where I'm going to go and so I did but then my school showed me and I got a separation so I think I had to figure out ways to make it work because I'm going to be the one you know with the change you've had that goal that's what resonated with me to be doing that I did I just started to feel just a little as I said like for a few years I don't understand do you want me to help you I was like am I going to do that I'm like I'm going to do that I got this cross middle I just broke it, and it's your obligation to do whatever it is you're trying to do.