In this session we hear from one of Canada's premier experts on global licensing/merchandising and brand/franchise marketing focused on Asia. Jacqueline has spent 2 decades in the children's entertainment space and shares some of her experiences taking the minions to China, bringing the Wiggles to Canada and much much more.

Learn more about Jacqueline's company, Playology International: https://www.playologyintl.com/

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Qasim Virjee 0:29

Welcome back to another episode of the start, well podcast this time around, I'm joined in studio with Jacqueline Vaughn, who I've known for many, many years. And we're reconnecting today to talk all things content, licensing, games, merchandising, children's entertainment, we'll see where this conversation goes. There's a lot to talk about. But with that, I will welcome Jackie, Jack. Jack,

Jacqueline Vong 0:58

I hate Jackie.

Qasim Virjee 1:00

To all the Jackie's out there.

Jacqueline Vong 1:04

Enjoy your name, and it's just not me, you keep

Qasim Virjee 1:06

rocking your name. Hi, Q Hi, it is so nice to have you here. And to see your face after so long after many years as we've each fallen into family life perhaps?

Jacqueline Vong 1:17

Yes, it's been a it's been a while and I'm so happy to be back and feel like I'm back. You know, during COVID in a room with people, and a gorgeous place at start. Well, good job.

Qasim Virjee 1:31

Thank you. Thank you very much. This place has been a lot of work. But you know, it's a it's work that enables other people's work. And that's fulfilling to me. So I love it. Congratulations on all of that. Thank you. Lots of talk about for starters, catch me up, catch our audience up on what play ology Incorporated, is.

Jacqueline Vong 1:53

Okay, so for the last five years, folks, I have run a strategic consultancy in the youth entertainment and kids space, basically, merging the intersection of licensing, merchandise licensing and content marketing together. So what does that mean? Basically, we know that we're consuming content in different ways, and it's ever changing. And so we have set up ourselves to be thought leaders there and create your go to market strategy, from content initiation, to development, to creation into the merchandise licensing piece where you make actual toys and publishing and games and help you broker that huge gap and monetize it.

Qasim Virjee 2:40

Okay, so starting, let's talk about starting the foundation story as an entrepreneur of launching play ology, Inc. Wow, what's the like, what was the if there were if there was a context that you could paint for us of founding your own company, because I know that you work with some some great, you know, toy companies, people in this space, doing all sorts of things. And you can call those experiences out and then just tell me a little bit about like, how you went on your own kind of thing.

Jacqueline Vong 3:05

So I had the pleasure of starting my career with some of the greats and master course entertainment Nelvana and Mattel, where I managed Barbie, which you know, as a female growing up as a child Barbie was the mecca of where you are. And in the toy industry, Mattel being the number one toy company, Barbie was the place I wanted to be. So when I landed the job, I thought, Wow, that's amazing. But where do I go next? So I had the opportunity after Mattel to actually go to China, and live out my dream of managing the territory of the mainland and creating experiences for kids there. And when was that? What year was that? It was 2011. So I left Toronto to go to Hong Kong, and manage China from China but living in Hong Kong. So commuting an hour a day. And bringing in Western brands like Transformers Fisher Price, the minions and Peppa Pig. So I helped with the conversation and the storytelling of Peppa Pig to making it the

We sat down with the cofounder of Canada's leading publication focused on the emerging North American Cannabis industry. Jay from Business of Cannabis gives us a 101 on how the industry is structured whilst recounting fun anecdotes and an update about being acquired recently by Prohibition Partners from the UK.

Links:

StartWell Podcasts on the Web: https://magazine.startwell.co/magazine/podcasts/

On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/startwell/id1391959054

On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3mZuqf6L5g1fUJRTSttVQs

Business of Cannabis: https://businessofcannabis.com/

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Qasim Virjee 0:28

Welcome back to the StartWell podcast once again, I am Qasim and today I'm joined in studio by J. Rosenthal, Jay came to start well as a member used to record in this very studio that didn't sound or look as good for the business of cannabis. And that is the domain name on your T shirt.

Jay Rosenthal 0:51

Always be branding.

Qasim Virjee 0:52

I guess so. I wore the wrong thing today,

Jay Rosenthal 0:56

well get your shirt.

Qasim Virjee 0:59

No, I didn't mean that I didn't wear you, oh, man, I don't know wearing my shirt. You know, I could wear your shirt if you want.

Jay Rosenthal 1:04

I only have three shirts, they all say the same thing. And I just keep wearing

Qasim Virjee 1:07

J. I want to talk a little bit about how you came into the world of cannabis and your personal experiences with you know what you write about now? Business cannabis the intersect. And then I want to kind of explore what your lenses on the industry because so much has happened since you came to start well as a member a couple years ago, and things opened up legally. And I personally am totally in the dark about it. I'm sure a lot of my audiences. So I'd love to illuminate them. And first off, yes. Welcome back.

Jay Rosenthal 1:39

Thank you. These are a few of my favorite things to talk about myself. And we'd Excellent. See what? Let me talk about how I got to start? Well, first of all,

Qasim Virjee 1:49

I'd love to hear that because

Jay Rosenthal 1:51

I was looking for a place to record really worst versions of what we're doing right now. Yeah, where I would have people come in wanting to be around downtown. And at the time, there was this real trend of like all the cannabis CEOs coming through downtown Toronto on their, like their money show, basically, right? They were raising capital, raising capital going public talking to investors, base street meetings, right? Like, do 20 In one day, 22 days, I wanted to be in that stock so we could get them talking about cannabis. And it was great. And this was a great location to do that. And then they stopped coming because of COVID. That was part of it. And then we were fully remote. But it was the time and business of cannabis. And we were like if we could just do something nearly every day, right? We would just be filling a gap. And people are just hungry and thirsty for this information, both in the industry outside the industry looking in. And that's what we needed a space for. And this was like ideal we did events here to

Qasim Virjee 2:45

know tell me a little bit about the backdrop like career backdrop or otherwise interest backdrop, how did you get involved in kind of like documenting what's going on in this? You know, totally nascent at the time. I mean, even now, it's only been a couple years, right? So it's still very young. Yeah,

Jay Rosenthal 3:00

it's funny, I was just we were just in Las Vegas last week for the big trade show and cannabis. And some were saying like, what was your background that brought you to do this? And I

In this episode we hear from the founder of Toronto's Astrolab Studios - one of the most popular boutique studios for commercial film and photography located on the Revival Film Studios lot in the city's downtown neighbourhood of Leslieville.

Adam found his way into studio ownership from a previous career in Press Relations and has since begun developing is talents behind the decks as a house music DJ and behind the lens as a still photographer becoming commercially sought after for his work with professional athletes.

StartWell Podcasts on the Web: https://magazine.startwell.co/magazine/podcasts/

On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/startwell/id1391959054

On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3mZuqf6L5g1fUJRTSttVQs

Astrolab Studios: https://astrolab.studio

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Qasim Virjee 0:29

All right, welcome back to another episode of the start well, Podcast. I'm Qasim and this time in studio with my friend Adam wiener wiener whitener? Yeah, it's a German name. Yeah, you got it. That's it awesome.

Qasim Virjee 0:45

Adam is going to be telling us all sorts of magical stories about his wonderful life in creative stuff. And I'm excited to dig into all that his adventures yield in terms of inspiration for anyone considering paths, you know, in their career in, in the arts, in culture, in business, and all that together. So, welcome to the studio. Adam. Thank you very much. Thank you, Qasim for having me here. Of course, pleasure to have you here. Man. I don't know how magical the stories will be. But I'll I'll do my best to fill them with as much wimzie as I can. Absolutely. You know, I'm not gonna hold you against any particular measure of magic. My daughter is not in studio with us today. So she's not gonna be you know, expecting unicorns.

Qasim Virjee 1:30

Go for it. Perfect. Let's start with an introduction cake. Because I know you. We haven't known each other that long. But, but it's been really cool. Because my take on who you are is probably a limited slice of who you think you are? Of course. Sure. Yeah. So why don't why don't you tell our audience and tell me a little bit of a little bit of who the the Adam Vianna Yeah. You know, story, how that story unfolded? And brought you sure

Adam Weitner 1:57

Well, yeah, I'll start with just a quick who I am. So again, my name is Adam Whitener. And, you know, you might know me as the owner of a studio called astrolabe Studios, which is a studio. And this is how Qasim really knows me. You know, it's a studio setup to support Toronto's creative community, predominantly commercials, corporate videos,

Adam Weitner 2:21

music videos, sort of anything greater than visual, basically, that's sort of what we're set up to support. So we're a facility a space, you know, we've got like the white site coves and we've got lots of gear lighting, etc, etc, etc. So that's kind of how I'd say most how most people know me, because that's the business that I created the brand and I created astrolabe studios, right. That's what I'm really known for. But I'm also a photographer, and that's really been taking off for me. That's been something I would have called like, a side passion hobby thing for many, many years.

Qasim Virjee 3:04

We all felt like pros, right? Totally. Yeah, the power in your head.

Adam Weitner 3:07

Absolutely. And learning to shoot manual. You know, that was my first camera where I learned to shoot manual. Anyway. So I'm a photographer as well. And I'm sure we'll talk more about that. Sure. And then I'm also now this is just kind of funny to me. But I guess you could say, I'm technically a DJ, I've actually b

Celebrating 10 years in business, Len joins us to recount the foundation story of The Depanneur.

His self-described 'interesting place where food things happen' has become one of Toronto's most applauded places to find unique experiences for those who love food, community and adventure. The Dep is where anyone who wants to cook for people can find a kitchen and audience - something which is uniquely honest and refreshing in a city experiencing crazy inflation and gentrification.

A must-listen for anyone interested in food, social enterprise, bootstrapping and everything which makes Toronto diverse and amazing.

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Qasim Virjee 0:29

So welcome back to another episode of The Star Well, Podcast. I'm Qasim and this time in studio with my friend Len Sen, who I haven't seen for. I don't know how many years, it's been a few, quite a few. In a previous life, we were working on projects, maybe 15 years ago, getting clothes that were like that were like web projects for all sorts of clients that you had at your studio, called hypnotic. And one of the anecdotes that I remember recounting to someone, when I was telling them that you're coming in today was that as a designer, you made at that time, and it still sticks with me, some of the most interesting and, shall we say, involved to implement designs, for web interfaces. This is a time when, you know, CSS was fairly new. And, and some of the interfaces you made like our camp Erawan, right, the local kids camp summer camp. And you really remember, you really kind of wanted to relate the camp experience through the interface. And there was a very cool design for the backdrop for the background, and how it worked into the contextualize the content in that design. And I remember when we worked on that project, it was it stuck with me as something that more people should be thinking in that way. And I'm sure it's gonna, that that idea of contextualization of human experience is going to work into our discussion today. Anyway, welcome to the studio lens.

Len Senater 2:05

No, thank you very much. I mean, you know, in all fairness, I have to give credit to my business partner, Barry Martin, and our creative director at the time, Brian, how they were, that was that Erawan project, which was very, very beautiful. And I do think kind of ahead of its time really was their babies. So that wasn't a project that I had my fingers in too deeply. So I wouldn't want to take too much sure credit for that one. But yeah, I did have a tendency to I had my, you know, I had studied, I taught typography, and I had a sort of a real interest in design. And it was interesting as we got into web, you know, especially in the early days, it was, in some ways a step forward with interactivity. I had also been doing CD ROM development and other kinds of interactive multimedia stories.

Qasim Virjee 2:48

Take a step back there. Did you say cd rom development?

Len Senater 2:52

Oh, yeah. So I'll take a step away back, we can even we can come up to, to the CD ROM part. So yeah, originally, I studied commercial photography in Montreal. I was from Montreal originally. But I grew up here in Toronto. And then I lived in France briefly. And then I moved back to Montreal to keep my French from atrophying completely. Yeah, study, keep some original photography there. Back when it was on film. And then, towards the end of my studies, I got a demonstration of Photoshop one. And I was, you know, completely, completely smitten, I realized this is definitely where I wanted to go with that. And so I kind of dove in, I volunteered to work in a couple of places that had at that time, sort of high end back equipment, quadros, and stuff like that, and taught myself the early suite of tools as Photoshop before they had layers, even before they had multiple Anduze. So you had to get things right, and you had to understand how it all wo

For this episode, we had the pleasure of sitting down with the cofounders of Ascari - a Toronto based hospitality group that has evolved in the past decade+ from an experimental Izakaya into a portfolio of French/Italian restaurants, bar plus new retail concept.

Ascari cofounders Erik Joyal and John Sinopoli have been an innovative tour de force through the pandemic, managing not only to stay alive despite uncertainty but expanding their customer offering by focusing on what their team excels at.

*Recorded on October 8, 2021

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Qasim Virjee 0:28

Welcome back to the start. Well podcast. For this episode, we're sitting down in studio at start well on King Street West with Eric oil, and Johnson opoli, from the scary Hospitality Group. So, okay, so you guys start, you know, your partnership, you meet each other. The chef joins the front man, you found a Japanese is a guy in a city that was still finding its culinary, you know, interests. You were early or ahead of the game. And then 50 staff, suddenly, you're a whirlwind of operations nightmare with that restaurant. And when it ends very quickly, you find something that's a bit of a kind of a slower pace that's more manageable. And, and you start having fun, maybe a little bit more. It's

Erik Joyal 1:19

always fun. It was always it was always fun. There were there's different degrees of stress. And there's different degrees of challenges, right, I think managing table 17 Still had its huge challenges, even though it was a smaller team, they were just different.

John Sinopoli 1:34

I don't know. Yeah, I agree. I think that wouldn't mean is that guy was open for three years and had a lot of success. In many ways. I think that couple of mistakes we made were maybe the size, the neighborhood things that first operators if and the experience we provided in like year one was very different from the experience we were providing by the end, but but that time, I think the whole might have been a bit deep and the traction wasn't wasn't there. But with table 17 The motivation was do what you know, right? And we knew the food experience you're gonna provide there, like it was a very European continental cuisine that was rooted in Italian and French. And an experience that Eric and I are both very familiar and comfortable with, not that we weren't familiar with is a chi experience. We were because you lived in Japan, I did live in Japan. And Eric was very familiar with a similar concept in England when he lived there. And I think that the challenge was, how could we communicate that experience, where people are going to believe us that this is this was what people said, it was a lot easier because of our backgrounds and our roots. And so like, people

Qasim Virjee 2:45

walk into an izakaya. And it's a white guy saying, oh, and they're like, What the hell is going on? We

John Sinopoli 2:53

didn't have course, you know, very strong Japanese team in the back of house and the front and the front as well, like we had in to be honest, at the time, too, there was a fraction of the Japanese immigrants in Toronto than there are now like, now, there's a whole community of young Japanese people who own restaurants and do do that, and bring their culture here at the time wasn't the case. So we, I remember came to us like the Yeah, like, there was like one little five page Japanese newspaper in Toronto, you know, and, and they had us featured a couple times, and that helped us get some great employees. But table 17 was a change in pace in a few ways. Like we went to a neighborhood Yeah, we're making personal relationships, we relationships and connections with our clientele. Those were lasting relationships, very different from the St. Lawrence Market neighborhood experience, which was more touristy, more like, you know, daytime people and then they would leave and go home and there was a few

Welcome to Toronto’s Old Town neighbourhood near the St Lawrence Market – an area with roots dating back to 1793 when this city of now 3 million people was founded.

With bike lanes, historic parks and plenty of boutiques, cafes and bars you’d normally find throngs of tourists and office workers strolling along sidewalks but its mid April and a month since the city started reacting to the Corona Virus Pandemic.

Here on Lombard street we caught up with Sameer Mohammed outside the first of his three Fahrenheit Coffee locations. Much loved by his many regulars who usually pop in on their way to work as well as through the day, Fahrenheit has been voted Best Specialty Coffee House many times over since its foundation in 2012.

Just a month into Toronto’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic, Sameer has had to close his newest location, and in order to keep the other two open he’s had to reduce staff headcount, added to the takeout menu plus stepped in to work behind the counter.

For our inaugural episode we sat down with Dr Sheila Lakhoo – a family doctor who leads the Telemedicine Impact Plus clinic at St Michael’s Hospital. Recently she has also been the Medical Director at Union Health (a new clinic owned by Telus Health utilizing their own telemedicine app called Akira) and practices lifestyle medicine at One80Health – an integrative clinic in Yorkville.

Her take on the current situation:

OHIP Billing codes now covering telemedicine through 3rd party apps (like Telus/Union Health’s Akira app)

Physicians across Ontario are using a multitude of video conferencing software options (including Facetime, Skype and Zoom) to offer care because of the restriction lifted on HIPAA compliance with this pandemic

Until this pandemic the Ontario Telemedicine Network (provided by the publicly funded provincial healthcare system) was the primary means of conducting virtual consults and was mainly used for complex cases which may involve remote patients who didn’t have direct access to doctors in person

Most doctors across the province may not have every used telemedicine at all leading up to this pandemic

A lot of the online consults she is conducting include education about Covid and symptomatic diagnosis as well as how people can stay healthy whilst isolating

Vision for the near future:

If not a single platform emerging as ‘the best’ virtual care app, some form of unification of options may come in a new standard being developed and enforced at a platform layer

Better tools will emerge to save time and make processes easier for doctors using artificial intelligence and systems integrations – for example, automatic transcriptions of patient charting with virtual care (telephone and video conferencing) built into Electronic Medical Records systems

Some walk-in clinics may not be able to re-open post-pandemic

A large number of Ontarians who may not have regular doctors (typically who use walk-in clinics) may shift to primarily using Virtual care as their main interface with doctors

Doctors may choose to work online instead of in person where its more lucrative and efficient for their schedules

With so many local small and medium sized businesses facing economic uncertainty in the face of the global pandemic, we thought it timely to get StartWell Member company First Aid Canada Inc on the microphone for this special episode of our podcast.

Aaron Wayne is a first aid instructor, lifeguard and VP of Sales at First Aid Canada - an eCommerce vendor that believes 'every person has the capacity to save a life.' Their online shop sells a variety of first aid/medical supplies, equipment and defibrillators (AEDs) sourced globally but shipped from here in Toronto.

In this episode, Aaron tells us a little about his company's offering, how they sell online and what challenges he is facing because of the pandemic. Amazingly, despite the economic down-turn and supply chain issues, Aaron and his team continue to stay open - servicing regular institutional clients, the general public and Canada's healthcare workers.

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Qasim Virjee 0:14

All right back once again, for this the 30th episode of the struggle podcast. I am your host, as always Qasim Virjee, the founder and CEO of start well, here in the studio at about six feet distance, we're keeping our distance we're keeping clean with some hand sanitizer here. I'm sitting with Aaron Wayne, who's one of our members has been a member of struggle since November 2018. And we've got some interesting stuff to talk about. I think Aaron, which is your business kind of has an angle on the current pandemic, in the sense that you're able to continue operating and your services help people, which is kind of cool in this time of uncertainties. So, Aaron, why don't you go ahead and just introduce yourself?

Aaron Wayne 0:59

Yeah, thanks for having me. First off. Yeah. So my name is Aaron Wayne. I am a co owner and VP of Sales first aid Canada. And yeah, I'm a distributor of first aid and medical supplies.

Qasim Virjee 1:12

Okay, so tell me a little bit about the background on the company. This was this is a family business unit.

Aaron Wayne 1:17

Yes, family business. I own it with my father, my brother. Pretty well. How we get started was actually my brother initially started. He and I both have a lifeguarding swim instructing background.

Qasim Virjee 1:29

Okay. This is like a high school thing. Yeah, for sure. That high school or

Aaron Wayne 1:33

in high school? Yeah. Yeah. My brother's seven years older than I am. And yes, when he was a lifeguard and swim instructor, and then going into University took kinesiology in that program, course a lot of people required the Center for C certification. And CMC was certified to teach, he thought I'd why not provide that kind of service to his fellow students. So he just started a small company aside, just doing first aid training. When I got old enough to be able to teach myself I kind of came on board again, just as a side thing while I was a first aid and some instructor or sorry, yes. Instructor and then. And then yeah, when I was dead on side every now and then was working my job and being in school. And after Ryerson, I went to Ryerson and finance and closer to the end of the program, I thought, you know, why didn't I get into something more along the lines of some I can control myself my own project. And at the time, he wasn't doing anything with it, he was doing his PhD. And so I asked him if I can kind of take over the company and build some out of it. And I've been doing it ever since. So

Qasim Virjee 2:40

at that point, when he came out of university with a be calm, yeah, guessing. What was the like? What was the state of the company? Were you guys actually selling a lot of? So was it ecommerce at

Aaron Wayne 2:51

that point? It was Yeah, I think my brothers did a little bit of E commerce very lucky, Steve, you know, paid a few 100 bucks to get a very small, very low tech e commerce company at the time, foun

This special episode is the fifth of 5 talks delivered on stage at StartWell's Event Space on King St W in downtown Toronto on November 28, 2019 for a globally roaming annual series called Dark Futures.

This talk was presented by Nikola Danaylov, founder of Singularity Media Inc, and is titled "NeoTechnocracy The Future is Worse than You Think."

*Dark Futures is presented by globally renowned Futurist, speaker, researcher, and author Nikolas Badminton. (https://nikolasbadminton.com/)

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Qasim Virjee 0:19

Welcome back to the 29th episode of The Star well podcast. My name is Qasim and I'm start will CEO and founder and for this special episode, which is the fifth talk captured at dark futures YYC, an event we hosted in our event space in downtown Toronto on November 28 2019. We've got a very special talk by Nikola. Dan I love and the talk is called Neil technocracy. The future is worse than you think.

Nikola Danaylov 0:59

In 2016, my wife Julia, Nas, and I did a road trip across California. Naturally, among the points of interest, were San Francisco and Los Angeles. Now, if you're driving in, like we were, chances are that the very first thing you would see upon entering LA is those makeshift tent camps with 10s of 1000s of homeless Americans. And that's interesting before because two years before our trip, Peter Diamandis published his New York Times bestselling book, abundance, and told us that the future is better than we think. And he said that we not only can, but also will solve all of humanity, humanity's grand challenges, with three things, more capital, more technology, and what people called what Peter called the right people. Later on in his book, he defined them as the new techno philanthropists. Well, strange enough, there we were, in Peters backyard, in ground zero, in the one place in the world with the highest concentration of all of the above. And somehow, all that we saw, was shocking level of poverty, environmental destruction, wildfires completely out of control, crumbling infrastructure, and allegedly very high rates of crime, especially compared to us. I got so shocked that I decided to do some research on it to get even more shocked in discovering that if you actually calculate the cost of living, the so called Golden State of California, is actually the poorest state in the United States of America. Because perhaps as many as one out of four, live either at or below the poverty line. Now, California is the fifth largest economy in the world, and of course, the largest economy within the United States. And yet, according to McKinsey's, it ranks dead last, in terms of quality of life. Now, this paradoxical situation raises a number of very important questions. For example, how is it that poorer countries such as Canada, that have less access to capital, less access to advanced tech, somehow managed to have happier, healthier and longer living population? By the way, we live for years longer than Americans on average? And have lower degree of homelessness, lower crime rates, and free health care to boot? Another question is, is it a mere coincidence that the richest state in the United States with the highest concentrations of billionaires, billion multi billion and trillion dollar approaching companies, and the most high tech ever is at the same time the poorest state? And finally, the ultimate question? What if the future is worse than we think? How would we know it? Well, one way to know it is to hear all the people in front of me, they did a great job. And if you haven't convinced you yet, I'm going to give it my best shot too. So we would know that the future is worse than we think by looking at the present. And by looking at California, we already know that abundance is a myth. I have spoken before at length, about how tech companies create deliberate sca

This special episode is the fourth of 5 talks delivered on stage at StartWell's Event Space on King St W in downtown Toronto on November 28, 2019 for a globally roaming annual series called Dark Futures.

This talk was presented by Melissa Eshaghbeigi,(https://www.linkedin.com/in/eshaghbeigi), a strategist at the Toronto design and experience agency JAM3, and is titled "It's 2039, you're either stressed, depressed or cancelled."

*Dark Futures is presented by globally renowned Futurist, speaker, researcher, and author Nikolas Badminton. (https://nikolasbadminton.com/)

[expand title="Podcast Transcript"]

Qasim Virjee 0:20

Welcome back to this the 28th episode of The Star well podcast. I'm your host, Qasim Virjee, the founder and CEO of start well, and this episode is the fourth of five talks that we're broadcasting as recordings captured on November 28 2019. At an event called Dark futures y, y, z. This talk is by Melissa Chagny. And it's called it's 2039. You're either stressed, depressed, or canceled.

Melissa Eshaghbeigi 0:56

Thank you. So I'm now I'm probably like most notorious for having this kind of last name. If you're curious. It's pronounced as Hawk baby. But truthfully, I didn't really know that for most of my life. I am a strategist at jam three, which is an experience and design agency. And the most interesting thing about me is that I spend a lot of time online, which I know isn't totally ownable. But I'm innately curious about people. And the Internet is a treasure trove of information. I've basically made a career out of reporting to other people and brands about what we're all up to online. So I'm going to kind of share with you what I've seen what I've noticed, and we'll talk about some future implications of the content that we consume. What I'm kind of investing a lot of time in right now is tic tock, which I fully believe to be the strangest place on the internet stranger than Reddit. I still haven't fully cracked why teens think this is cool. But you can find a lot of interesting things on tick tock I actually recently joined last night. So I say follow me but my username is like username 5236 Something for anyway. Anyways, before I talk about the future, I want to talk about the present. For those of you who might have been offline this summer, you might have missed the fried chicken frenzy of 2019. I'll do a really quick summary of what happened. But basically Popeye's released a new chicken sandwich. Big news story right? Up until Chick fil A felt like it was totally appropriate to sub tweet them and talk about how they actually have the best, the original and therefore the best chicken sandwich. What happened was the classic American bedtime story of war between brands, Popeyes quote, tweeted Chick fil A, Wendy's even got in on the mess. And from there, the internet went a frenzy. Everyone was talking about chicken sandwiches. But they weren't just talking about chicken sandwiches. They were buying chicken sandwiches. Popeyes ended up going out of him two months worth of inventory in the span of like 10 days. So the demand got even higher. There was hype for meat. From there. There was an announcement around the end of October that if you hadn't missed your opportunity to get a fried chicken sandwich well, on November 3, you'd get your chance. But then something really awful happened. In Maryland, a young man a 28 year old man by the name of Kevin Tyrell Davis was stabbed and later pronounced dead for cutting in line out of Popeye's that had rereleased the chicken sandwich. Chief of Police in Maryland said it best How does a confrontation lead to a homicide and 15 seconds, the internet makes us do weird things. It makes us impulsive. And it impedes a sense of urgency. And I don't think we always talk about it. But there are some people that are talking about it messed