 Also, there are little tablets on the chairs. This is an interactive workshop. I like to make it fun. I don't want to stand up here and lecture anybody, but everybody's going to participate in some form or fashion. And we have a whole hour, can you believe it, a whole hour this morning. That's going to be so much fun. Don't get in your mile. Okay. He's just going to stand up and talk the whole time. No, I'm not. I'm going to talk most of the time. But some of you are going to get to talk too. So if you need a pen, you can raise your hand and the lovely Aida will give you a pen. If you need a pen, this is Aida of Love Built Life and I am William Jackson of My Quest to Teach. We are from Jacksonville, Florida, all the way up here to the lovely Asheville, North Carolina. This is a beautiful place. We love the mountains and everything. So we're having a great time. Aida spoke yesterday. I get a chance to speak today. Have some fun. Raise your hand if you are more than 100 miles away from here. How about 200? How about 300? How about 50? Okay. So everybody's kind of close by. Which is good. Okay. Pretty cool. Just to make sure you are at the session, use WordPress to share your voice to address social issues. Now, I'm going to warn you ahead of time. I'm an elementary school teacher, bless you. And I teach physical education and technology at Venetia Elementary School in Jacksonville, Florida. So I'm really interactive and engaged because, you know, you got to be that way when you're working with kindergarteners in first graders because they're all over the place. So what we're going to do first of all is I need everybody to take out your digital devices with your cell phones and know I'm not going to take them from you. This is a demonstration that I always like to do, okay? So what we're going to do. Hey, welcome. Come on in. Have a seat. Enjoy it. Come on and have fun. All right. Hold your digital devices up. And I would like you to repeat after me. You ready? This can be my best friend or my worst enemy. Now, don't put it up because during the course of the presentation, you're going to take some pictures, some little video. We're going to be tweeting, Instagraming, Facebook and whatever your social media platform is and probably doing a couple of selfies because we're going to talk about your digital content and how important it is. So as we go through the slides, we're going to talk about some blogging, too. Everybody in here that blogs, please raise your hand. So everybody's hands should go up. So let's try this again. Everybody in here that blogs, put your hand up because blogging is just not the traditional blogging where you're typing and sharing words and verbiage on your computer. Blogging can be video blogging. It could be podcasting. It could be microblogging. Who knows what microblogging is? What is microblogging? Facebook. Okay. Facebook. Okay. Very good. How about Twitter? Is that included as well? Okay. So there's many platforms that you can use to blog. So it's not just one type. Why is that important? Because everybody in here has a voice and sometimes you have to share your voice and you're passionate about different social issues. Whatever the issues that you have, you may want to share that issue to create a positive change. And this is basically what this presentation is using your voice to create positive change. So when we're talking about blogging, you're going to be sharing your thoughts, your memories, your ideas, your skills, and your abilities. So as a teacher, my job is to empower other people to see the awesomeness within themselves. So the props are your eyeball, hold up your eyeball, and this is, and you are going to take this with you. This is to remind you that because we are on a digital platform or on digital platforms, we have to remember somebody is always watching us. Somebody always has their eye on us. And I'm not talking about big brother, a little brother, a big sister, a little sister, or the government. I'm talking about people that we may not have physically met, but digitally they're watching us. And I'll give you a prime example. This is my 32nd year teaching in education, public education. I love it. It's an awesome career. I'm a fourth generation teacher. But it blew me away a couple of years ago when my fourth and fifth graders walked up to me and said, hey, coach, I heard you have a YouTube channel. And I was like, yes, I do. Well, I'm following you on your YouTube channel. So remember, the impact that just hit me is like, OK, you're in fourth grade and you're in third grade. My first thought was, what the heck are you doing on social media anyway? But then kids are on social media. So not only are they on social media, but their parents are on social media. So you use that as a conduit to share positive information. So if you're watching me on social media and on YouTube, that means I have to empower you with positive information to help you to grow and to learn. So I like to talk to the young people. So I was talking to the young lady in the back. And I'm not trying to embarrass her or anything. And there was a young man right there as well that we kind of met each other yesterday when we kind of bumped into each other. But it's important that young people know as well when you're starting your life and you're growing and you're developing, you're trying to figure out what you want to do when you grow up. And some of us are still at that age where we're trying to figure out what we want to do when we grow up. When you're on social media and using technology, somebody's always watching you and it does have an impact on your life. So as we go through the slides, here's a couple of pictures that I put together. In the middle, it's the most important one. Aida and I at a work camp having fun hanging out. The other ones represent individual information as well. Over at the top, I have my name, of course, I've been teaching, my email address, my Twitter handle. So if you want to friend me or send me information or request information, you're more than happy to do that. But in the lower left-hand corner, who is that a picture of? That's a picture of me. Why is that important? Because a student drew that picture because that picture represents their thought process of who I am to them. So think about the type of content or pictures that you put out on social media, what kind of perception are you creating of yourself and or your business? So raise your hand if you have a business. Awesome. Okay, raise your hand if you're an entrepreneur. All right, raise your hand if you're a solopreneur. All right, so we have all thesepreneurs out here. That's awesome. All right, so we're in some type of business. Raise your hand if you have a brand. Who has a brand? Now, when I say that, and I'm going to say it again, everybody needs to raise their hand because you all are some type of brand. So if you go to another work camp or you go to a Drupal or some other workshop or conference and somebody says everybody that has a brand, raise your hand. So everybody should raise their hand because your name is your brand as well. There used to be a divide where you had your business and you had your personal years ago. Now the lines are blurred because your actions and reactions and visibility in the public also have a reflection on your brand and your business. So down here at the bottom, this is my brand. My quest to teach because I am a teacher. I love teaching all kinds of subjects, science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. So that represents STEAM. So not only do I teach PE, I teach STEAM. Why is that important? Because young people should understand that they can have more than one career. A lot of young people think they can only do one thing. But with technology, you're able to do multiple things. And a lot of us here, we do multitask when we're working it in our purpose, also education on this side. Who is this? Who is this right here? Wapoo. Wapoo's are all, we love wapoo's. We love to share wapoo's. We love to talk about wapoo's. And that's important too because wapoo's represent word press and word camp. Who in here has a logo? OK, how many of you created your own logo? How is that working for you? Young man in the back, how's that working for you? OK, all right. Young lady, how's that working for you? OK. OK, all right, great. So I tell you what, word camps are an awesome place to network. And the reason I said it, if you have a pocket full of business cards before word camp is over, your pocket should be empty of your business cards and full of other people's business cards because this is an awesome networking environment. So that actually happened to work out great. So young man, this young lady is a graphic designer. Young lady, he needs somebody to help him with his logo. So there we did some great networking, all right? So that's how that works. Up at the top was my first time at word camp US. I was an emcee, which really worked out really cool. I was scared and nervous. But that also means that get out of your comfort zone. Apply to speak, apply to volunteer. Do something proactive that allows you to grow in your purpose. Word Camp Jacksonville is coming up June 29th and 30th, if you did not know. So we're looking for volunteers. There's still opportunities to sponsor word camp. Aida and I are doing a kids camp. So if you have kids that really want to get involved as well, there's still opportunities for kids to register for kids camp. So that way they're involved and they're a part of the program. So some other pictures at the end over there, that's when we had the kids camp in Orlando. So your graphical representation of what you're doing in the community is very important because it builds your brand and it helps you address the social issues that you are aspiring to make a change or you think that something needs to be transformatively changed or adapted. So everybody is important for you to find your voice. When I say find your voice, what are you passionate about? What do you think that there needs to be change directed to? Using the content that you create, everybody does have a voice, whether you're on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, whatever platform it is, you now have a voice and your voice is very powerful. Now, particular times during the year, there are different things going on each month. So the month of June is what month is this? What does this represent? Summer, so you can schools out, vacation, what are some social issues that each month is represented by? Which ones? September Suicide Awareness. September Suicide Awareness, any others? Breast Cancer Awareness Month. So there's different social issues that you can speak about. And the reason that I encourage you to speak about it because a lot of people wanna get more visibility online for their concerns and their ideas and their abilities to create some type of social change. Now I'm not talking about revolts, I'm not talking about revolution, I'm not talking about anything related to that. But something that you're passionate about that you wanna voice your opinion on a platform that could magnify and help you collaborate with others to make a positive change. Breast Cancer Awareness is not just a national issue but it's a global issue. Suicide prevention with so many kids unfortunately affected by bullying and cyberbullying. Those changes are really important because you can contribute to the dialogue and the discussion as well. Be a voice, not an echo. And that's very important because you don't wanna echo somebody else's opinions and ideas unless they are in line with what you're trying to share. Unless they are in line with what your passions are because too many people try to jump on what's called the bandwagon. And the effects could affect not only your profession, not only your career, but your social standing as well. I was talking to someone earlier about how in China people's social media content can actually affect their career choices and their social standing in their country because what they have now is they have algorithms where it monitors people's social media content that they post and if they are not aligned with the thinking of the government or organizations, they will post their pictures on big billboards exclaiming that they're not in line with the social content of what's going on in their countries. So just imagine if you are not in line with certain things that are going on with our government and they take a picture and they put your picture up on a big old billboard and they said, this person is not in line with what we're thinking about. How that could affect your career. So people from time to time say, oh, that's not going on in the world. That's not what actually it is because China does not have the freedoms that we do and there are certain countries as well. Yes, sir. That is true, that is true. In education, being an educator, you have to be really careful, particularly about what you post about your students, your school administration. If it's in a negative context, that can be detrimental. But if you're actually speaking about policy changes which you think would benefit the school overall or curriculum or even change it at your school in a positive way, that's not really looked down upon but if you're directly verbally attacking someone or talking about a student or talking about parents, that could be a problem because you hear more and more now about governmental officials, lawyers, politicians, people in law enforcement sporadically voicing their opinion and they're not thinking about what you're doing, they're just posting stuff and it comes back to bite them. So that way you do have to be very careful on that. The human voice is the most perfect instrument of all because you have to remember somebody is listening to you whether you like it or not or whether you believe it. I'll give you a couple of perfect examples, Walmart and Jacksonville. Every once in a while, go to Walmart and do some shopping and off in the distance out here, this little voice, Coach Jackson, and I'm like looking around like, where's this little, I said, I'm just hearing things, I'm just having a flashback to school. So I'm walking towards Walmart, then I hear again, Coach Jackson, and I'm looking and it's like, where is this coming from? And it's a little kid in their parents' car hanging out the window waving at me, okay? So your voice does matter. It's always important when you're involved in the area of technology or your business that somebody is always watching you. And that little voice doesn't necessarily have to be a voice that you can hear by your ears. It could be a voice digitally, whether somebody sends you a tweet, a Facebook message, or Instagram, reply to your YouTube channel, something that's out there. And the appropriate thing to do is most of the time is to provide a response to it that's positive, informative, and educational. Because you look at the opportunities to share content with others. Now if there's somebody out there that's just saying bad things about you and talking about you, in most of the cases, that's just, you just ignore that. Because there's a little, I don't wanna say controversy, but people are talking about whether you should have comments on or not on WordPress. I keep my comments on because I love to get feedback, good and bad, because I gauge that how my content is affecting people, inspiring people, and encouraging people. Where's your voice? What type of voice do you have? Engage, interact, and inspire. Okay, digitally and vocally. So if I asked you right now to stand up, which I'm not gonna do, and scream at the top of your lungs, what you're passionate about, how much relief do you think you would feel emotionally and mentally, just to get it all out of your system? And some people do that online, through their blogging, through YouTube, through other digital content. So they may not be able to do it physically, but they do it online. So you have to think about what type of voice do you wanna be known for? What type of information do you wanna share? And not only that, how is it affecting your brand and your business? Because we do hear from time to time people get frustrated at work, and they share their ideas and their opinions like the young man was talking about. And it does come back. But think about your content. Does it inspire people? Does it encourage people? Does it educate people? What does it actually do? We have the opportunity for Alexa on myquestoteach.com to have that actually read using Create My Voice. So technology is allowing you to change and be more accessible with people that are physically challenged as well. So a lot of us don't really have time sometimes to sit down and actually read a book. But think about how powerful it could be if you're blogging and you can have Alexa or Google actually read your content and that could inspire others that may not have that direct access to actually read a blog or take the time to sit down and actually read the blog. We're all content creators. Every one of us. Whether we're, whether, it doesn't matter what type of social media content we're using. So raise your hand if you are a blogger. And when I say blogger, I mean traditional blogger that you blog and you post content. What is your blog about? Humor in life? Okay. Who else raised their hand? What, your man in the back. What is your blog about? Yes, sir. Servant leadership. Okay, anybody else? Yes, sir. Okay. You want to say that again for everybody? Okay, so that's a really good social issue right there. Okay, would you like, what is the name of your blog? Blocktech.com Blocktech.com? Block. Okay. Thank you very much for sharing. So there's different ideas, different resources out there that are available. And in our open source community, it's all built around us as a community and sharing information with each other. Think about how influential your brand is currently, how it will be in the future and can potentially be transformative. We can transform people's minds by the content that we post. We can transform people's minds by our actions and our behaviors. Now, we're gonna get out of the digital content, we're gonna get into how we interact socially within the communities that we're in. So here we're at a word camp, word camp Asheville. And as I said before, if you have a pocket full of business cards, by the end of the day, you should have everybody else's business card and not just your own. But if you didn't bring a business card, you should have somebody's Twitter address, email, something so that way you can stay in contact with individuals or groups that are here. Aida and I, we love to engage and talk with people because we share resources with each other. Because Aida, she creates, she builds small business websites. She doesn't do the big giant websites, but she does the small business. But it helps because when you're talking to people about their ideas in your business, you may not be able to provide a particular service with what you do, but you gain those resources so you can connect people with each other. And not only are you connecting businesses with each other, but you're connecting people that may have similar social ideas for change or encouragement or advancement that may help each other. So being an open source community, we have this great opportunity to share content with each other that's really important. So some of y'all may know this. 50 million users for radio took 38 years, 13 years for television, and four years for the internet. I love NPR. They provide some great information. How many of y'all have ever had an NPR moment? And you just sit there and you just listen. Well, they share some valuable information. The reason I bring that up, too, is because the content that we absorb around us creates in our mind an emotional and psychological impact that sometimes we can't keep to ourselves. And sometimes it helps when we're listening to NPR or other programs that we reply to the information that's being broadcast, whether we agree with it or whether we disagree with it, because that helps contribute to the discussion. And sometimes people are reluctant to do that because they keep it inside of them. They're like, well, nobody wants to listen to me. Nobody wants to hear me. But what are you doing to be proactive to actually share the content and information that you have? Because you never know, you may share something that can potentially transform somebody mentally. There's a young man named Steve Swartz that we know. He's an awesome photographer and he is in security, digital security. He encourages as many people, he's like an evangelist for a WordPress, a WordCamp, because what he'll do is he'll listen to people speak and talk, but then he'll understand that they may be reluctant to even apply to speak at a WordCamp, to even apply to volunteer. And he is really passionate about it. He inspires me, he inspires Aida and a lot of other people. And David as well, David, raise your hand. That's David. And he's speaking this afternoon too, so be sure to sit in on his talk as well. What he'll do in our Demonstrate. Who would like to be a volunteer? Okay, come on up here, sir. Give him a hand. All right, what is your name? I'll dare. Sir? I'll dare. I'll dare, nice to meet you, will you? So if you stand right here, and what do you do? I have a music blog called Music Wanderer. Oh, okay. Who else in here is in the music? Okay, so y'all can network and connect. So actually this is what Steve will do. Have you ever thought about speaking at a WordCamp? Speaking at a WordCamp? Speaking at a WordCamp. Okay. This is my first WordCamp. Fair, give him a hand. This is his first WordCamp. All right. So I'm gonna emulate what Steve does and this is where we share content and information. Think about this. You have so much information in your head that you are doing people a disservice not to apply to speak at a WordCamp. So it's not all about just the technology. It's about what passion you have with music that you can apply at a WordCamp to inspire people, okay? So when the next opportunity comes up, apply and think of a great caption and title and put together a great presentation so that you can share that information with others that are here. All right? Sounds good? Yes, sir. Appreciate you. Yeah, that was a mellow, Steve. Steve will get in your face and point and say, you can do this. So but it still helps to inspire us and it doesn't matter what age or what gender or what cultural background it doesn't matter cause we're in an open source community and this is where the diversity and the inclusiveness comes in. We all have issues. We just deal with them in different ways and in diverse priorities. So we know who the two young people, things over there are, right? So they create a lot of social issues, good, bad and different, but we also have some social issues that we're dealing with as well. And everybody has some type of opinion. You cannot not have an opinion about some of these social issues. So whether you're engaging in the conversation or not, there comes a point where you actually have to deal with those issues, whether on a personal basis, a business basis, a community basis or whatever. You have to have an opinion. So we're at an age now where we're inundated with so much information digitally, we have to categorize the information where we can deal with it and we can address it. Identify what your passions are and once you identify what they are, you deal with them and address them. So as I said before, your passions also sometimes directly affect your brand and your brand also affects your passions. Now how does that work? So when you get in a social context and you're speaking about different issues, you have to make sure you understand where you stand on those various issues. Because in one way or another, if you're a business person, you're going to be directly affected by those issues. And you have to think, well, how is that going to impact my brand? How is that going to impact my business? In a discussion, what am I going to stand on that I'm passionate about? So the change is in you. The strategy is what you apply to direct those issues. Your integrity and ethics, all of us have some type of integrity and ethics. If you don't think you do, have a social issue come up and you're going to address it in some type of way. Be honest and define your principles. What are your principles and the issues that you're dealing with or the issues that somebody wants your opinion about? Because somebody may ask you your opinion. Well, as a business owner, what do you think about such and such and such and such? So besides just the government saying, will you have to address these issues as a business owner or as entrepreneur or solopreneur? What are your issues about it? What is your idea? Your words, deeds and actions also define who you are. And I know this is a lot of information to go through, but these are things for you to think about because you never know they may come up and you're gonna have to address them then. So be sure you're relevant by diversifying your knowledge. And the great thing is we're all here at a work camp. So our knowledge is building on the different workshops that we're attending. So the more you empower your brain, the better you are able to deal with what you might have to address. And that helps not only for your business to grow, but it allows your brand to expand too. Because there's a saying that says, you want your brand to be so strong that your brand arrives at a place before you actually do. So when you're looking at the names of the speakers in their presentations, you wanna make sure that your brand is known to be a positive brand, to be encouraging, enlightening, educational so that people understand what your brand is about and how or where you stand on certain issues. Be ready for the long haul, be faithful to your cause, don't be scared to seek collaboration because we can't all do it alone. We have to work together. Just like the young man with his logo and the young lady that's the graphic designer, that's the perfect connection. Think about how you can help solve an issue for others. Okay. You have a story others need to hear. What is your story? It's okay to share sometimes what you have gone through, what you have been through and what you have helped others. Why is that important? Because a lot of brands now are addressing social issues and not only are they addressing social issues, but they're providing resources. Maybe not directly from them, but they're making those connections with each other. They're building collaborations, they're building partnerships and that goes back to another thing to consider as a business owner, are you and your business involved in the community? What are you doing to promote social change? Are you participating in breast cancer awareness walks? Are you participating in diabetes or high blood pressure walks? What are you doing to help aid cause? Are you sponsoring? Are you promoting? Are you advocating? And when I say that, it doesn't always come down to a money thing. It comes down to how is your brand and how is your business making a presence in the community? So SEO and Google are good, but I look at those as clinical applications because you're digital. They don't get out and they're not involved in the community. If you wanna build your business, word of mouth is still one of the best ways to do it. Can people see you? Can they shake your hand? Can they talk to you of five or 10 minutes about what your ideas and opinions are? Are you involved in the community? What are you doing to help sponsor, promote things in schools so that people know what your business is about and what you're doing? Pepsi, Coke, Disney, they are all awesome at that. Even though they have a dynamic team, you yourself, which your business is being an entrepreneur within your community, think about what you're sponsoring. Think about what you're promoting. Think about what you're engaged in to build your business as an icon in your community. So when something comes up in your community, they may go out and ask for promotion from other businesses, but is your business one of those that people think about, oh, well, we can go to this business in our community or this person to ask them to sponsor it, whether it's something at a school or whether it's something at a hospital or something like that. Okay, this is an interactive part. It's gonna take a couple of minutes. What you're gonna do is write down three social issues you are passionate about enough to change. So the tablets that you have, if you need a pen or something, take it out. So we have a few minutes. So what we're gonna do is your little homework assignment right here, all right? So write down three social issues you are passionate about enough to change. And I'll tell you, like I tell my students at school, it's okay to be scared to voice your opinion because that fear or that hesitation also brings some wisdom because you don't wanna be too vocal on a particular situation if you don't have all the information that you need. So when you think about what you're passionate about and what social issue, what three are you passionate about? Somebody has to be passionate about something. And then after you write that down, write down why you want to make the changes and who the changes will benefit because you can take this same information as you're writing it down and apply it to your business. What direction do you wanna take your business? Why do you wanna take it that way? What type of change will the redirection of your business create? Because every once in a while we have to re-transform our business ideas because if we're going down the road and we come to a fork in the road, we have to decide are we gonna go to the left or to the right with our business? What is the best option with the information that we have? The other thing too is, will the changes be sustainable? And in one of the previous slides, the long haul, it takes a while for change to happen. Are you ready to take that time to keep it sustainable and then write down three people who you think will work with you? Because as a community, an open source community, it takes each and every one of us to create an atmosphere that welcomes diversity, that welcomes inclusiveness in the WordPress word camp community. This is why as an educator and a parent that young people are very key and very important because we should embrace and encourage more young people to attend word camps because they are our future. Because as business owners, we can mentor them and we can help them not make the mistakes that we made as business owners, establishing our businesses and building our businesses. So if he doesn't mind, the young man that's sitting in the road right here. Hey sir, young man next to you, I'm sorry. Would you mind if you stood up and told us like kind of like what do you think you would want to do in life? Well actually like what career would you want in life? Okay. Too many different. Okay, well that's cool. Okay, thank you, give him a hand. So with that answer, who in here is in computer science, computer technology? Okay, so this is the opportunity to talk to his dad, talk to his dad and him about potential careers, share business cards because this young man may be an intern for you one day or he may be a client or he may actually be an employee one day for your business. So the earlier that you can start, the better, okay? So it's better to collaborate with him now because as he gets older, he may start his own business and turn out to be your competitor. So you have to be proactive or boss in that case as well. The young lady in the back, not to put her on the spot. I'm sorry there. Could you stand up as well? Okay, and we talked earlier, she wasn't really sure but she enjoyed working with children. Am I right? Okay, so is there anyone here that has a business related to working with children? Not education, obviously, but like pediatrics or anything like that, okay? Well it's good to ask, so that way you know that there are young people interested in those careers. Would you like to contribute something there? As far as other options for careers or supporting you and helping you figure out what you wanna do in the dog world, okay? Oh, awesome, all right, we'll give them both a hand. Thank you for sharing, appreciate it. So we've all been there. When I first started out, I wanted to be a fighter pilot and I wanted to fly jets and I knew specifically what I wanted to fly. I wanted to fly an F-4 Phantom in the United States Air Force. I wanted to fly 200 feet off the ground and go supersonic. That's all I wanted to do for a long time. But then when I started working with kids, it was like, okay, well, this seems like a better career than something potentially could happen in a jet like that, so. Okay. So would anybody like to stand up and share what they wrote down for social issues that they're passionate about? Okay, yes, sir? Okay. Okay, all right, awesome. Okay, so the next one is why do you wanna make changes with those? Okay, okay, okay, okay. Okay. I think the house you have in the neighborhood is really, really, really nice. I like to buy it. You can say to me, oh no, you can't have the house you're brown, but you can have some of the house in some of my other neighborhoods. Right. And that one is just geared of housing and wealth because there are not more and more housing opportunities. Opportunities, right. Okay, thank you for sharing. Give him a hand. And when you think about that, think about that in the context of being a business owner. Your business is relied upon the social economic status of those people that you're going to be doing business with. And you have to think about your location. Does your location or the changes in your location, how is that gonna affect your business? Now your business may totally be digital, but you still have to think about in the digital world who your potential customers are and how far you have to branch out from where you are or who you're directly working with or who your potential customers are because that still affects your business in some form or fashion. Thank you for sharing. Your brand should command, all right. It's not personal, but it is. How much strength does your brand command attention to it? When people do a Google search, and this is where SEO and Google comes in, are people bringing up your business? Are you known in your community to promote and sponsor and advocate? Because you do have a voice and it's all about your voice, your brand and your business. And again, I believe I said this earlier. One case years ago, your brand and your personal relationship were totally separate. People would say, okay, you have to have a Facebook account for your business and then you have to have a personal account, which is all well and good, but now it's connected dynamically because people see, okay, you have a business, but what is your business doing that's socially responsible and socially engaging? So now you have to have those thoughts about it as well. What directions are you going and which is focused? Is your focus, is your direction focused or is it blurry? Can you see five years down the road what's gonna go on with your business? Can you see or are you playing in 10 years down the road? You have to do that now with the changes in technology, with the changes in the socioeconomic status of millions of Americans in the United States. What's going on socially now that will directly affect you? Your brand and your voice encourages you unity, teamwork or embraces diversity. You have an opportunity through your brand and your business and your voice to create some type of change. And this is why I emphasize that a lot of businesses, no matter what size they are, to be involved in community activities and events that are going on in your area. Because not only are you creating a change, you're providing your voice, but you are showing that businesses are important in the direction of social issues. Because you do not wanna get caught in a position where someone knows that you have a business, but then they come up directly to you and ask you, why are you not involved in this social issue? Where are, who are you aligned with? Who are you collaborating with? What are you doing as a business owner to help create some type of change? Do you inspire collaboration? And no single component is important. Everybody is important. When you contribute, when you collaborate, and this is why I'm doing presentations, I love to get engagement with each other to find out who may need a type of resource. As I said before, this is a wonderful networking environment, but we sometimes don't know that until we actually engage with each other while we're in here at Word Camps. Diversity of content, creation. Everyone can contribute. So we have a few minutes left. So what I would like to do before it's time to go, two people that are close to you, what you're gonna do is you are going to greet them, shake their hands, and you're gonna exchange some information about actually what your business is and what your brand is, and maybe you can find some type of collaboration between each other. So it's only gonna take a couple of minutes. So don't be shy, all right? And you know, you're just gonna introduce yourself and find out from each other what you do, what your brand is, and what your business is. And go ahead and go. So as you're greeting each other, make sure you shake hands and you share content and information. Oh, probably a little bit before. Okay, I'm gonna come back in. So when you're wrapped up, I wanna make a quick announcement before we let them out again. Okay, because I'm at 10.15, so I should be done at... Oh, 11.15. 11.15. Yeah, so I'll be back in about five or 10 minutes. Okay, all right, yes ma'am. Okay, so I love the smiles, the eye-to-eye engagement. We have a couple of people moving around, which is good. If you have business cards, don't forget to share your business cards. Also on your name badges are your Twitter handles. So share your Twitter handles if you would like to continue the discussion later. All right, so as you're talking, I'm going to take a video of everybody engaged, sharing information, providing some feedback to each other. I see some people sharing their social media information and it's great to see the young people being involved too as well. All right. Okay, so let's wind it down. Oh, thank you. I don't want to break it, I have to pay for it. Okay, let's have your closing because you can also still talk at the happiness bar at the end as well. So, yes. Okay, so at my school we do class, class. And I usually get back yes, yes, but. Okay, let's wind it down so we can continue. See, this is the danger when you get people talking and it's like, yeah, okay, so we're going to continue on. So at your closing remarks, make sure you have their contact information in case you want to contact them later. Good job, wonderful. The content that you all created, great content is important and great content matters, not the quality. Because you can sit there and talk for an hour and not share great content, quality content. It's the type of information and engagement that you have that's really important. So like I try to teach the young people at the school that I teach, even though it's elementary school, it's really important that when you're engaging in information with someone and you're sharing information that it's quality information that you can take with you and not keep with you, but you can share with each other or share with others as you travel and as you move around. So when we go along with the presentation, collaboration, search for who and whom you can collaborate with and always encourage collaboration versus competition. If you think about how large Google is, Google, if you think about how large Facebook is with Facebook or YouTube, those are just not one entities. There are multiple businesses or multiple organizations that create a global economic power within Google. And when you look at the infrastructure of Google, you also look at some of their business plans. And one of them is very interesting. If a company is created, a digital company, whether it's a graphics company, whether it's a digital media company, if there's an inkling that it would be competitive with Google or Facebook, their business strategy is to buy that company and absorb them into Google or Facebook because even though they may start off small, you look at when Facebook started, it was a small company and now it's a global entity. It's ingrained in just about everybody's life in one way or another. So even if you don't have a Facebook account, if you have kids or grandkids or friends that do, are you on Facebook? Can I find you on Facebook? I'm looking for you on Facebook. I can't find you on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or whatever. So they are very important to understand the dynamics of businesses. So as a business owner, who is your competitor? Are there opportunities to collaborate with each other as opposed to compete with each other? And when you collaborate, what type of, not just change can you make looking at the bottom line but what kind of social change can you make as well? There's a term called so lo mo co. Social engagement, visible, excuse me, social engagement, local visibility, mobile agility and community activism. I love to be involved in my community. I either loves to be involved in the community because it provides us an opportunity to share the knowledge that we have gained. The kids at my school love it when I go off to work camps because when I come back, I'll have waupoos, I'll have stickers, I'll have something to bring back to them to make that connection that is awesome and great to go to conferences. So when we inspire young people at an early age to go to conferences and attend conferences, then one, they know how to behave when they go out in public. Two, they'll know what questions to ask when they find people that share their same interest and passion. Three, that they understand that they can have a business and be an entrepreneur or a solopreneur. And even if they don't know what they wanna do right now, they have connections, people they can go to and talk to or connect to digitally to find out, hey, I'm interested in this area. I remember I met such and such at work camp. Maybe I can reach out to them through social media and maybe one day I can be an intern for them or they can direct me to what direction for my career or maybe they can also write a letter of recommendation to a college that they may have attended. So you look at the broader picture and you look at globally how you inspire others as well. Everyone in here, you're a writer, you're an editor, a content creator, you're a publisher. All of these represent who you are and what you do through your business and your brand. If you don't believe that, go back and look through the content that you create and that you posted online and look at some of the engagement. If you wanna increase your engagement, if you wanna increase your voice, you have to be involved and you have to directly engage in social issues in your community and in your environment. Never let the world define your success nor naced layers determine your success. So once you start putting out content and information, if you haven't experienced it yet, you will have what I call naced layers, people that will try to tear you down, people that will talk about you, people that will speak bad about you. But then you look at it at a context, well, if I don't ever say anything, what type of change will I potentially make or how would that influence my business to grow beyond where you are right now or how empowering will that make my brand as well? Because as the years go on, people are gonna look at what information did you leave behind? What is your legacy? What are you trying to establish and what are you trying to build? Not just as an individual, but as a business owner. And that is the end of my presentation. So I hope you learned a great deal. And just take away a lot of the information and share it, don't keep it to yourselves. And remember, you can inspire and encourage young people. Get out there and talk to them, be engaged and volunteering and get your brand out there with your business. You should always have your business cards and your information because you never know who you're gonna meet. Thank you very much. Yes, sir. Yes. Right. Right. Well, my passion is with education and with so much going on, not just locally, but nationally with education, what I try to do is find a balance. And if it's directly related with kids and parents, I try to find resources that balance out the challenges that parents may be facing in school systems. So let's say if you have, if there's a child that has a learning disability, as opposed to running to the principal and saying, well, we need to do this and we need to address this and we need to do that being a teacher, that could cause problems for me. But finding the resources that I can directly share with parents and say if your child may have a problem with dyslexia or ADHD, here are some resources to help you directly address that issue. Because sometimes school districts, they don't have the money, the resources or the personnel to directly address that. But then the personnel involved may not have the language to properly speak to the parents, which sometimes is the case, to talk to the parents about what other alternatives do they have? And as a teacher, in the legislature, they're making all kinds of changes, but the common sense thing is, well, we're gonna go talk to teachers about what changes need to be made, but in too many cases, they don't. They'll pass legislation about reading, math, whatever, and we just have to deal with it. But on that level, we have to teach a certain curriculum. So how can I change the curriculum a little bit to meet the needs of my students? And that's where your passion comes in, the information and resources that you can gain or receive, how do you share it in the community? Yes? Yes. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Yes, ma'am. Conversation, right. Right. Exactly. It's disappearing. Yes, ma'am. And it's a good idea to attend school board meetings. I mean, even if you don't have kids attend school board meetings to actually find out what the schools may need, and you may have a resource. Schools need, they need money, but they also need resources to help people talk to the young people about different social issues that are going on. And if you're passionate about bullying and cyberbullying, or as you were talking about, build those relationships early so that if there is a need, your name, your company, your brand will come to mind. Oh, we'll reach out to such and such and have them come to the school and talk to the kids. Because a lot of social issues, I remember, start grassroots. And you may not hear about them two years later when it becomes, I don't wanna say a bigger problem, but a bigger issue than everybody has an opinion or perception of people yelling at each other as opposed to, like you were saying, building a relationship to help solve that issue. Okay, thank you very much. Yes, sir? Oh. The sponsors that are gonna do some giveaways at 1.15. So if you're back from lunch at 1.15 of that big crescent shape and that's kind of there in the middle where you got your swag, the sponsors are gonna do their giveaways. So if you haven't been by the sponsor's table, but I think GoDaddy has given away a couple of IKEA gift certificates. Hampton's given away a GoPro and Ninja Shop's given away a TV and a Ninja game. So stop by the sponsor booth, sign up for them if you wanna win them, be back at 1.15 to get them. And if you were a late registrant and you didn't get a t-shirt at 1.30 after the sponsor give away, you can see if there's any size left of your t-shirt or if you wanna trade one or whatever. So just wanted to make sure that everybody was aware of that. And we are about three minutes from time, but if you wanna do one more. So we'll do one more question, but I'll be here so if anybody has any additional questions, I'll be, we'll be happy. Yes. I was thinking about something that's happening to a person of color, we have this kind of like, they're contrarians, if I say racism is bad, which is something that everybody should pretty easily get behind, like you always have those people who are like, oh well affirmative action is negatively affecting white people. You know, or, I mean most recently, the next time over at Hendersonville, it's just announced that they're having a gay pride parade. And I saw on Facebook, there's probably like 300 people that are on the comments that are angry about them having a gay pride parade and it affects them at all. But yeah, I don't understand why. Well I think one of the things, and I always go, and it's, I always reference this. I have two kids, they're both 20, in their 20s. And it was a, there was a time as they were growing up that I would not listen to anything that, because I'm like, I'm dad, you know, I got more experience, more life than you do, but there was a time where I had to stop and think, well maybe there is something that they can contribute to educate me and have me to learn about the world through their eyes. Because now there's so much going on that I have to adapt and adjust my thinking to be able to address social issues that are going on now that I may not have had to deal with when I was growing up. So instead of me telling my kids how I think, I ask them, what do you think? And that helps me to understand not just my opinion and perception, but how does it look from their eyes? And gay pride or racism or other social issues, I have to learn what did you experience in your life that you're passionate about so I can find a way to help promote you or support you to live a positive and productive life. It's not my intent to change them, but how can I help you be more positive and productive in the world? Because as a business owner, you may be a client one day, we may collaborate on a project, we may have to work together on a board or something. So even though we may have a difference of opinion, there has to be a line where we can come in and agree to disagree or I can learn, I wanna say this, I can learn how I can work with you and you can see my opinion and I can see your opinion, we can respect each other as opposed to saying, you're totally wrong, you shouldn't be doing this, but that's not my life, that's their life. And sometimes you just have to step back a little bit or a lot and look at it from another person's perspective to say, well, has that situation ever happened to me? And if it did, how did I respond or react to it? Or if it does, I may need your help to help address this issue because it may affect a family member. And there, unfortunately, there are kids that are LBGT that are being kicked out of their homes, they're homeless, they don't know where to go, they don't know what to do, but their children, their kids, whether you're 18, 19, they're still kids, it's like you still have to support them because they're out on the street. So it's beyond your lifestyle, these are people, these are young people, what can I do to help support them? I hope that hopefully that answered your question. Yeah, okay, all right. So thank you, I appreciate y'all. Y'all did a great job, give yourselves a hand. Thank you.